Seeing the Elephant
by ucsbdad
Summary: The Farscape crew crosses into the ultra violent world of Hammer's Slammers, a 31st century mercenary armored regiment.
1. Chapter 1

Seeing the Elephant

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Lo' La rocked and shuddered and tried to throw me out of my seat. D'Argo's ship wasn't to blame, rather it was the dozen or more Prowlers attacking us. So far, the defense screens had minimized the damage, but Lo' La was being difficult. Very difficult.

"Ka D'Argo, please authorize Aeryn Sun to control weapons system." Lo' La's computer generated voice asked calmly. I screamed an obscenity and pushed the suddenly useless control stick for Lo' La's weapons against its stops.

"Yes! Aeryn Sun already has my authorization to use the weapons." D'Argo bellowed.

Lo' La quietly replied. "Welcome, Aeryn Sun. You have weapons control." The control stick became active just as the last Prowler slipped out of range. The Prowlers were reorganizing out of range, so for a few dozen microts or so, we'd be safe.

"John, can you get any readings on the ship those Prowlers are from?" I called.

John shook his head and continued working the sensor controls.

"I can't make heads or tails out of any of this, Aeryn." I thought that meant he had no readings.

D'Argo had eventually convinced Lo' La's computer to allow me to use the ship's weapons and John to use the sensors. Naturally, he had found no use for Chiana's particular talents. Unfortunately, D'Argo's understanding of her systems was still incomplete and Lo' La could suddenly lock John or I out, usually at just the wrong moment.

"I'm really sorry about this." Came a voice from behind me.

Chiana just had to answer at once. "It's not your fault, Jool. This sort of thing happens to us all the time." She said cheerfully.

As far as I was concerned, a great deal of it was Jool's fault. Sensible people, of whom we met a very small number, would have never looked back after leaving Moya and her crew of renegades. Especially since those renegades were wanted by virtually every government in the galaxy for one reason or another. But we had run into Jool who just had to come along with us for a while.

All right, I admit it had been pleasant to have Jool aboard Moya for a weeken. Moya was a less pleasant place now with Scorpius and Sikozu aboard again. Chiana alternated between being the same self-centered trelk she had been when she first came aboard and something almost resembling a comrade. John was still John. An enormous bundle of human contradictions that I had been lucky enough to fall in love with. At least I felt lucky today. Some days I felt like my life might as well be over.

Now we were returning Jool to a commerce planet where she could catch a ship back to her archeological dig. At least we had been until we ran into the Prowlers. Now the Prowlers had us trapped between two gray, dead worlds in a deserted solar system.

"Aeryn!" John yelled. "They're coming in again."

I started tracking the incoming Prowlers and let my finger rest lightly on the firing pad. I let them get in range and a little more. Then, saying a prayer to a Goddess I didn't really believe in, I gently stroked the firing pad. Almost instantly, five of the Prowlers faded and then disappeared. I quickly set my sights on a group of five Prowlers nearest to us. Just as I was about to fire, Lo' La's computer spoke again.

"Weapons will now go off line for the routine maintenance you asked for, Aeryn Sun."

"No!" I screamed. "I didn't ask for any maintenance. Return weapons control to me." I could see that the computer was hard at work ignoring me and running unnecessary diagnostics. "D'Argo! Your frelling ship.."

"I know! I'm going to…" The rest of his words were drowned out by a burst of fire impacting on our defense shields. For two dozen microts, I thought it was all over, but then the Prowlers drew off again.

"Aeryn?" Both John and D'Argo called at once. For once John let D'Argo talk. "Aeryn, I think I've isolated the problem Lo' La is having with control by a non-Luxan. I can fix it."

I managed to hold my tongue and not tell him what I thought of his ship and it's problems. I turned to John.

"Aer, I can see more Prowlers headed this way, but I get nothing on the ship they're from. I think it's either jamming or Lo' La needs a seeing-eye dog."

D'Argo growled when he heard that. "Aeryn, see if you can help John. It may be his poor eyesight, again."

Before John could reply to the insult, I slid out of my chair and onto his lap. John soon found other things to occupy his mind, while I worked the sensor controls.

"Aeryn! John! If there are more Prowlers coming, I'm going to try to make a tight turn around the nearest planet. Lo La's capable of handling more acceleration than those Prowlers. We'll use the planets gravity to shoot us off into space and by the time they get around the planet, we'll be out of sensor range."

I nodded to D'Argo. That should work.

D'Argo swung Lo' La around towards the planet and put the engines into overdrive.

I stared at the sensor screen, trying to make sense of what was there. Given Lo' La's unwillingness to cooperate, that wasn't much.

"John, push the green button by your right hand five times." He did and the screen cleared a little. I made a few more adjustments. I almost had it. Then I really had it.

"Frell! D'Argo that's a frelling escort cruiser back there. That's where the frelling Prowlers are coming from." I screamed.

D'Argo nodded vigorously. "The more the reason to get out of here now." Lo' La was headed for the edge of the planet with her engines roaring.

"D'Argo!" I yelled over the noise. "Escort cruisers always travel with Command Carriers."

It was too late. The Command Carrier was slowly coming around the planet that had hidden it from us and we were headed straight for it at full power.

"D'Argo, head for the planet. Get around the carrier." John screamed.

"No!" I yelled back. "The Command Carrier is going to try to use it's docking web to capture us. Head way from the carrier."

"How the frell do I get past the Prowlers and the cruiser then?" D'Argo bellowed back.

We were all screaming at each other when we noticed our voices were the only noise being made. Lo' La had gone silent.

"Lo' La.!" D'Argo immediately started pounding on Lo' La's controls, but it was doing no good. All of the ship's systems were down.

"We're not dead." Jool said quietly.

"No, they stopped shooting " I replied. "The Peacekeepers know they can pull us in with a docking web. Why kill us?"

We sat for perhaps a hundred microts while D'Argo displayed an impressive command of Luxan profanity.

"D-man." John said quietly. "I don't mean to add to things, but you screwed up. You have us headed right for the planet, not past it."

D'Argo snorted. "Bull dren. I had us perfectly placed. If the engine hadn't failed, we'd have cleared the planet by 127 metras."

I stared ahead of us at the planet. "No, we're headed straight for the planet.

"That's not…" D'Argo started. Then he saw it too.

"D'Arg, that damned planet is coming right at us. Do something."

John was right. The planet was starting to bulge outward, headed for us and the Peacekeeper ships. The Command Carrier saw it and was starting to accelerate away from the planet, but the planet seemed to be gaining on it. The planet was no longer just bulging, it was headed our way like all Hezmana. I got a good look at its flat, dead surface just as there was a huge flash of light and then everything went black.

Someone was calling my name, but they were far away. I tried to focus and figure out how anyone could have gotten so far from me in D'Argo's small ship.

"Aeryn! Dammit, honey, wake up."

I was awake. Wasn't I?

"John?"

John's hands were running all over me. Not an unpleasant sensation, but hardly appropriate. I heard him whisper in my ear. "I don't think anything's broken. How do you feel?"

Everything came back to me at once and I was instantly alert. "I'm fine, John." I shook my head and decided I was, if not fine, all right. "How are you?"

"Much better, now, Aeryn."

John turned towards D'Argo. "Hey, D'Argo. How about giving Lo' La some high test so she'll…."

Before John got the rest out, all of Lo' La's systems came back on line at once. I grabbed for the weapon's controls. Those Prowlers had been almost on top of us and could be ready to shoot at any microt. I stared through the sights, but it took a microt to figure out what I was looking at. I finally decided it was the nose of a Prowler about a half a metra off. I ran the sights through three hundred and sixty degrees. All I could see around me were Prowler pieces.

"John…" I began.

"Aeryn, you have got to look at this." John said softly.

"Frell. That's impossible!" Chiana said from behind us.

I looked through Lo' La's forward vision port. Ahead of us was about two thirds of a Command Carrier. The end where the engines were appeared to have blown up.

"Same with the cruiser chasing us." John announced from the sensor array readouts.

He was right. The cruiser's engines had exploded. I guessed that all of the engines of the Prowlers had blown up, too.

"What the frell would cause that?" Jool asked.

"Who cares. I'm taking Lo' La out of here." But before D'Argo could act, Lo' La decided to play games again.

"Only sub-light speeds are now available." She announced crisply. Both D'Argo and I cursed at once.

"D'Argo, where the frell are we?" John asked.

"In the exact center of frelling dren. Where do you think we are?" Was the reply.

John pointed out the side vision port at the planet below us. The dead gray planet was no more. In its place was a warm green world, broken by blue seas and white clouds.

"Curioser and curiouser." John said under his breath. "And I can see Prowlers and transports coming out of the carrier. They must have been powered down when the dren hit the fan."

"I have no idea what the frell is happening here, but we should get out of here at once." D'Argo started turning Lo' La away.

"Over there?" Jool said.

Out the other view port was another green planet that had been dead and gray only microts ago,  
D'Argo nodded. "We have to get away from the Peacekeepers.

We headed away from the crippled ships towards the other green planet. I moved over with John and helped him keep track of the Peacekeepers, a simpler task now that there was no more jamming. I stared at the readouts. "Frell! They're headed for the same planet we're headed for."

John chuckled. "You bet. Nobody wants to mess with a planet that'll haul off and whack you one."

That made me think. "D'Argo, are we sure the planet were headed for won't try to attack us?"

"I have absolutely no idea. All I do know is that there are Peacekeepers who'll kill us back there."

"Aw, shit." John interrupted. "Bad news on the doorstep. Most of the transports and Marauders are hanging around the wrecks of the carrier and cruiser, but we have a good three dozen Prowlers headed after us."

D'Argo demonstrated his impressive command of Luxan obscenities again. It must have done some good, since Lo' La sped up enough to give us about a two-hour cushion before the Prowlers arrived. We decided to just get Lo' La down to someplace where we could hide on the planet. In less than ten microns we had punched through the atmosphere and were searching for a place to land amidst a forest of giant trees.

"Man, those trees make redwoods look like toothpicks. They must go three hundred motras straight up before they start branching out."

"Aer" John called. "Look, there's a village over there. And another." He was right. It appeared the planet was inhabited, but from the looks of the villages, there was nothing on this planet that would cause the Peacekeepers any problems.

D'Argo found an immense tree that had recently broken off near the base and fallen. The fallen trunk crossed a small hollow and the upper branches of the tree rested on a small hill. D'Argo was able to push Lo' La into what had been the upper branches, so we were partially hidden. Lo' La's stealth capabilities should take care of the rest, if she could be persuaded to use them.  
It took over an arn to convince Lo' La to hide herself and to determine that repair of the faster than light module was possible, given five solar days of work. A flight of Prowlers roaring over us let us know we didn't have five days to work with.

"We should head for the nearest village." John said.

"Why?" D'Argo growled back. "Do you think a bunch of frelling savages are going to have some ancient Luxan military technology lying around they'll loan us for Lo' La?"

"No, but they'll have food and water. Those Peacekeepers aren't going very far from this planet in Prowlers and Marauders. They could be here for a very long time, big guy."

"Crichton's right." Jool finally spoke up. "The carrier and cruiser have been destroyed. There are no Peacekeeper installations within the range of the ships they have left."

"No Peacekeeper installations we know about." Chiana said unhelpfully.

D'Argo snarled, but we headed off to where we thought the nearest village was.

We set off through the forest. John told us it was old growth and then explained what that meant. The biggest strongest trees grew the highest and got all of the sunlight. The weaker trees got no sunlight and died. The result was a nearly solid layer of leaves some hundreds of motras above us, leaving the floor of the forest in shadow. There was plenty of room between each tree. Fine if we wanted to move rapidly, but a problem if we needed cover from the Peacekeepers.

Suddenly, D'Argo put his hand up. "Peacekeepers ahead of us. Maybe a half a metra." We took cover behind a rotting log two motras thick and stared in the direction D'Argo had pointed in.

"We should be headed a half a metra in the other direction, Kemo Sabe." John whispered.

I shook my head. "We need to find out about these Peacekeepers. Are they looking for us specifically? Are they planning to set themselves up here or halfway around the planet? How many survived the explosions?"

"And you think they'll just happily volunteer the information, Aeryn?" John shot back.

"No, we'll just creep up on them and take a look. Six Prowlers went over us and that means six pilots. They won't want to leave their ships unattended, so even if they spot us, they won't chase us far. If at all." Without waiting for any further arguments, D'Argo and I headed towards the Peacekeepers.

"You can observe a lot by watching." Was John's cryptic comment.

We ended up crawling for nearly half a metra and finally ended up behind what John called the mother of all toadstools. Whatever that was, it provided us with some cover.

"Frell!" I muttered under my breath. Nobody else said a word, except for John. "Six pilots?

The Prowlers had shot a hole in the leafy canopy above us and landed in a straggling line. Around them a good two dozen Peacekeepers were forming up. "John, a Prowler can carry another three passengers over very short distances. I should have remembered that. I'm sorry."

John started to say something, but didn't. He just started backing away from the Peacekeepers. We did the same. As soon as we could, we were on our feet and headed away. "Screw the welcome wagon routine." John said as we ran.

"We still need to find out more about this planet and the Peacekeepers." D'Argo growled back.

"Well, this time you think up the plan, D'Argo." John shot back.

They were so frelling busy arguing, we almost ran into the next Peacekeeper patrol. The sound of a Peacekeeper yelling sent us diving behind a huge tree root. There was a narrow slit between the root and the ground that let John, D'Argo and I see. Ahead of us was another patrol, but this one had a prisoner. At first I thought he was a Vorlag, but I quickly realized he was too small. The prisoner was no larger than a Sebacean and appeared to be a biped. But he had the same long, toothy snout of a Vorlag and a body covered with brown fur. His arms were tied behind his back and a Peacekeeper lieutenant was waving a weapon of some sort under the being's nose. It was a short stubby weapon with a cylindrical magazine. Both the prisoner and the weapon were new to me. I nudged both John and D'Argo, but they pantomimed ignorance.

The lieutenant slammed his fist into the prisoner's side. "Where did you get the weapon, beast? Answer me." The prisoner just snarled and got the butt of the weapon across his snout for his trouble, knocking him down. The lieutenant dragged the prisoner to his feet. His last mistake, as it turned out. The prisoner lunged and dug his fangs into the lieutenant's throat. A gurgling scream was followed by a series of pulse blasts, but it was too late for the lieutenant. He was dead by the time they pulled the dead prisoner off of him.

While the rest of the Peacekeepers were distracted, we headed the other way. We got about ten motras, too.

"Report, you two." She was a stern looking gray haired Commander and she made her last mistake that day. Seeing John and I in the lead, she assumed we were more Peacekeepers. John and I drew and fired before she realized she was dead.

"Frell! Did all the Peacekeepers decide to land in one area? What's the drill when invading a brand new planet, Aeryn?"

A pulse blast over my head cut off any answer I might have made. "Dren!" Jool and Chiana said together. The four of us turned and fired at the Peacekeeper patrol behind us. As soon as they went for cover, we started running.

"Who are those guys?" John said pointlessly as we ran for our lives through the forest.

We suddenly found ourselves in an open space and then came to a very sudden stop. We had stopped on the edge of a cliff. It was a good fifty motras to the bottom, but growing up almost to the rim of the cliff was a species of vine with huge thorns. Lots of huge thorns.

"If we jump.." I started.

"Yeah. Don't even think about it, Aeryn. Can we go along the rim of this canyon and try to find a place to cross?" John asked.

"Only if the Peacekeepers are feeling especially cooperative today." Jool replied. "The trees don't grow up to the edge of the cliff. They'll be here in microns and.."

"We see, Princess." Chiana cut her off.

"If we can hold them off until night, maybe we can sneak away." Even John didn't sound like he believed that.

We managed to find another fallen branch to take cover behind and settled down to wait for the Peacekeepers. We knew we wouldn't have long to wait.

"Aeryn," John started. "I know that you don't like me to say anything in public…."

I cut him off. "I love you too, John."

He just grinned and shook his head. The one time I was sure I'd know what he would say, and he said nothing.  
I'll never understand humans.

We had only a few microts before I spotted the first Peacekeeper scout briefly sticking his head around a tree and just as quickly pulling it back. We held our fire until they got in the open. Frell! They were charging and there must have been more than fifty of them. The original patrol must have been reinforced. I pulled my pulse carbine against my shoulder and carefully took aim at the closest Peacekeeper. Before I could squeeze the trigger, an unbelievably bright bolt of light smashed my target to the ground and left him as a charred corpse. Their carefully planned assault on us dissolved in chaos. The plasma weapon I had seen fire at first was seen only occasionally, but the ground around the Peacekeepers was raked with explosions. I could also hear a high pitched humming. The Peacekeepers soon discovered they were being attacked from a force high in the trees around them, and switched their fire from us to the enemy above them. I saw a few bodies drop from the trees, but the Peacekeepers seemed to be outnumbered and they had no cover. It took no more than a micron before the forest ahead of us was silent. 


	2. Chapter 2

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Two

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape, John, Aeryn, D'Argo, Chiana and Jool have been chased by the Peacekeepers into a decidedly odd solar system. Our heroes land on a planet, only to be followed by the Peacekeepers. John and his friends are trapped by the Peacekeepers and face certain death. But, it's the Peacekeepers who die, ambushed by unseen attackers.

And now on Farscape.

"Jee-sus!" John finally breathed. "Who are those guys?'

I pointed to a tree not more than twenty motras ahead of us. A being like the prisoner we had seen stepped out from behind it and very deliberately slung his rifle over his back and stood there looking at us. I stood and slung my carbine over my back and stood there. John quickly joined my and then with a snarl, D'Argo moved to my other side. Chiana and Jool huddled behind D'Argo.

"I frelling hope this isn't the sign that we want to be ritually massacred, Aeryn." I heard Chiana mumble.

The local strode up to us and stopped a few motras away. Up close, he was about my height and more slender. He was wearing a hooded coat that hung to his knees, light green in color and covered with darker green patches. Altogether a good low-tech camouflage outfit for this world. His weapon was not low tech. I couldn't identify it, but it wasn't something some village blacksmith had built.

He stared at all of us and then pointed to John. "Human?"

John was too shocked to speak for a dozen microts. "Yeah, I'm human. You've met other humans? Where are they? Can you take us to them?"

He ignored John and pointed to D'Argo and the two women behind him. "Not human?"

Apparently I had been included in the human category. Over the alien's shoulder I could see his troops disarming the dead Peacekeepers. Waste not, want not as John has said.

Something finally got through to John. "You speak English? You just spoke to me in English."

The alien soldier nodded. "Priest teach me. Go to school, now officer."

A party of three more alien soldiers was coming up to us with a wounded Peacekeeper on a stretcher. Two of the aliens put the wounded Peacekeeper down and the third made some sort of gesture to his throat.

"Captain, this is most strange. These humans are not human."

The captain stared at him. "I always said education was lost on you, Doc. The humans aren't human? That doesn't even make sense."

Doc gave a very human shrug. "Look at the readings I got off of this one. She's close, a lot like human, but she just isn't human."

It was obvious these beings didn't have translator microbes and that they had never heard of Sebaceans before. That could be useful.

The officer dropped to one knee and examined some sort of monitor clipped onto the stretcher. The Peacekeeper was young, but commando trained. A huge bruise was starting to creep across one side of her face. She must have been captured after being knocked unconscious. She also appeared to have a wound in her stomach, though. Then the officer leaned close to her and inhaled deeply. Did he depend on his sense of smell to the same extent Vorlags did, I wondered?

He stood and sniffed at both John and I. "She like her, not like you, human." He was pointing at me accusingly and a good fifty or so of his soldiers were now gathered around us and starting to look at me in a way I didn't like. Before I could say or do anything, John had has arm around me and pulled me close. "This is my wife. She is not human and she is the same race as these Peacekeepers, and was one of them a long time ago, but now they're our enemies, too. They were chasing us for God's sake. They would have killed us or worse. You must have seen that, otherwise you would have killed us."

The Captain turned and called to someone behind him. "Scout, over here."

The scout pushed his way through the crowd around us. The crowd got the Captain's attention. "Benka, is your platoon taking a little vacation? Check our damned back trail. See who's behind us, if anyone. Lieutenant D'Elp, do you need some help comming headquarters to keep them up to date?" In a few microts, the officers and sergeants had the troops hard at work. That left us with the Captain, what I guessed was his command staff, and the scout.

The scout was dressed differently from the rest of the alien soldiers. His uniform blended in perfectly with the surrounding terrain. As he moved, the uniform changed to mimic whatever he was in front of. Up close you could see the blurred edges where the uniform ended and the background began, but with the hood, now pushed up over his head, in place, he be invisible at ten metras. These being's equipment were an interesting blend high and low tech. I hoped we lived long enough to unravel the mystery.

"What about this group." The Captain asked, pointing to us.

The scout shrugged. "I was watching the dumb-ass militiaman who got himself caught by the enemy patrol. I caught the scent of this group," He nodded towards us, "on account of they were different. Not human and not K'hiff, either. But I was busy and didn't check 'em out. Then the militiaman redeemed himself. 'Bout that time another enemy came up behind this human and his companions and said something to 'em and got shot for her pains. They traded fire with the enemy and took off. I commed you and said an enemy patrol was headed yours and would be too busy chasing these people to be paying any kind of close attention." He nodded back to the dead Peacekeepers around us. "I was damned well right, too."

The Captain stared at the scout and then at us and seemed to make a decision. "You talk to chiefs, tell what you know about enemies?" He asked us.

I nodded. "They're my enemies, too. We can all help you." The Captain nodded. "D'Elp? Comm command and tell them we're sending them some friendlies" He turned to us just as a sudden burst of firing could be heard in the distance.

D'Elp was apparently the unit communicator. "Captain, we got a big enemy patrol in contact with An Duman's platoon. Perka's joined up with him and the local militia. Enemy seems to be headed towards the grasslands to the east. Villagers at Pruffle and Genda have evaced and are rallying at the caves. Orders for the rest of us?"

The Captain stroked his long snout and thought. "Headed for the grasslands?" He stared sharply at me. "They fight better in the open, do they?"

I nodded. "They can use their aircraft to support them there. It's hard to pick up what's happening under the tree canopy. In the open, they can use their aircraft to chop you up. You'd better try to lure them back into the forest."

The Captain smiled, but said nothing.

In twenty microts we were on our way to whatever the headquarters of the locals was. One thing, we had been promised that more humans were there. A dozen or so alien soldiers accompanied us along with the medic we'd met earlier and his Peacekeeper patient who was carried in a crude stretcher. I dropped back to talk to him about the commando.

"How's she doing?" I began.

He shook his head. "She's not responding as well as I'd like to medications. The concussion is no problem, but she took some flechettes in the stomach. Are you a medical person by any chance?"

I shook my head. "Not at all. But I can tell you something about your prisoner, though."

"Patient. My patient." He broke in.

"Patient, then. I was like her once. I was captured and because I was exposed to unclassified aliens for too long, I was declared irreversibly contaminated. I was lucky, I had people….Well, I had one person actually, not that the others aren't…" I stopped. Would I never be able to explain John and what he meant to me in a few simple sentences?

"Your husband helped you?" The medic offered, helpfully.

"Yes, but that's not my point." He stared at me expectantly and I pushed ahead. "She'll hate you, all of you. The more so because you saved her life. She may try to kill herself and take some of you with her. Be very careful."

The medic examined her carefully, noting the readouts on the device plugged into her arm. "More anesthetic is in order, I think."

I walked along silently looking at the commando and wondering what her future would be. "How did you learn our language?" The medic asked suddenly.

"What?" I blurted out.

"The Captain was too busy to notice, I think. But it was obvious to me you understood what the scout and the others were saying about you. Body language, humans call it." He smiled. "By the way, I've been alternating between English and K'hiff for most of this conversation."

I cursed under my breath. "We don't speak your language. We have translator microbes that translate almost any words in any language we hear. So we can understand you, but can't communicate unless we know the language. My husband and I speak English." My husband. How easily that had come out. "The others speak a little."

The medic stared at me. "It would be a good idea if you mentioned that when you get to headquarters. They have some suspicious people around there. Not like me."

I nodded to him and sped up to catch up with John and the others. So much for the advantage of being able to understand the aliens without them noticing it.

After two arns, we were stopped by a group of heavily armed aliens. The medic and his patient were sent off and we went off to see whoever was in charge.

We were politely relieved of our weapons and ushered into the largest of a group of tents in the middle of the forest. The exterior of the tent blended into the forest. The inside was part command center and part luxury quarters. Dozens of K'hiff milled around doing the incomprehensible things headquarters types did. A half a dozen weren't K'hiff. They were humans, of course. Body language was a useful concept. There was no possibility they would have been mistaken for Sebaceans, much less Peacekeepers. Although they did wear uniforms like the K'hiff scout had worn and were armed.

One of the humans detached himself from a group of K'hiff and approached us. "Staff Colonel Dieter Yost, military adviser to His Excellency, President Azzule, your servant. You are Mr. Crichton and…?" He left the question hanging. John stepped forward and offered his hand, which Yost shook. "I'm John Crichton and this is my wife, Aeryn Sun, my friends Captain Ka D'Argo, Professor Joolushko Tunai Fanta Hovalis and Chiana."

Yost stared at me and then smiled. "Am I correct? Your wife is not human?"

Yost was a tall slender human with close-cropped blond hair and dark eyes. His smile was tinged with disbelief.

John grinned. "Not a bit. But we love each other." He glanced at me as if he expected an argument.

"Please, introduce me to our guests." A voice boomed from behind us.

He reminded me of some Peacekeeper senior officers I had known. Interested in you, concerned, ready to help. I hadn't liked or trusted a one of them. This alien might turn out to be different, though. Look at how I had initially felt about the crew of Moya.

Yost cleared his throat, "May I present Mr. John Crichton, who is a human and his wife Aeryn Sun, who in spite of appearances is not. Also, the imposing Captain Ka' D'Argo, Professor Joolushko Tunai Fanta Hovalis and Miss Chiana." Yost executed a small bow to the alien and turned to us. "May I present His Excellency, President Azzule of the Salween River Valley Dominion."

Chiana snaked through the crowd surrounding the President and slipped her arm through his. "President Azzule? My, what a lovely planet you have. I'd love to see more of it." Azzule smiled encouragingly at her. He either had very odd tastes in female companionship, or he had decades of experience dealing with people trying to get something from him. I strongly suspected the latter. Either way, Chiana was arm and arm with him and was not going to let go if I knew her.

"I control only the river valley, from the foothills to the sea, Miss Chiana. But it's a not inconsiderable tract." I tried to match the memory I had of the planet with Azzule's claim. If he did control the entire river valley I remembered, he controlled a large area indeed.  
President Azzule managed to turn back to us without dislodging Chiana. "Is it true that you came through the Anomaly?"

John nodded. "If you mean the ship-eating planet just out from you, we've met. We were being chased by two Peacekeeper warships when we all got slam dunked here. How, I don't know."

An elderly looking K'hiff leaned in to enter the conversation. Chiana wasn't the only one hanging on to the President, I noticed. "Seventy years ago the first human exploratory ship stopped here on K'hiff, or Hurate's World, as humans prefer to call it. They said they were going to explore the next world out, but no one ever heard from them again. Those days we only had crude telescopes and saw nothing of them." The old K'hiff gave a delicate little shudder. "The next human ship to arrive in system sent a ship's boat which disappeared when it got within one planetary diameter of the Anomaly."

A bulky human spoke up next. "The Sikander was from the Greater Albegnesian Free Trade Area. We sent a two dozen damned unmanned probes after the cutter and never got a damned thing back. How'd you manage to get through?"

The human was starting to sound accusatory, as if we were responsible for whatever had happened all those years ago.

"A good question, Mr. Crichton." Azzule's voice boomed out. "Tell us everything."

It took John an hour to tell our story and he didn't come close to telling them everything.

When he was done they all just stared at us silently. I wished I could have told what they were thinking. Finally, Colonel Yost spoke up. "That is the damndest story I have ever heard, bar none."

"When did you say you left Earth, Mr. Crichton?" Someone asked.

John grimaced and waited a microt to answer. "The year was 1999. It's based on the Christian religious calendar, but we also called it the Common Era." He stopped for another microt. "How long have I been gone?"

Strangely, it was the old K'hiff who answered. "Almost a thousand years, I'm afraid. I'm Tunch Belunch, by the way, and I'm a Christian myself, so I keep track of the years in the Christian manner."

John pushed his way through the crowd and out of the tent. I followed right behind him, away from the tent, past the sentries until he stopped behind a monstrous tree.

"Damn!" Was all he said.

I desperately needed to understand John and the emotions he was feeling now. This was just the sort of opportunity that I routinely frelled up. "If you want to make a home here…"

He didn't let me finish. "Sure, John Crichton will amaze you with his stories of an Earth of a vanished age. I could do a Renaissance Pleasure Faire schtick. I may be the only human who still understands the infield fly rule."

Frankly, he was sounding a little hysterical. "All right, John. We'll head back through the Anomaly. The secret seems to be going through with the engine off so it won't explode.."

He interrupted again. "Oh great. That's based on one occurrence, Aeryn. Maybe we got through because we accidentally picked just the right trajectory. Maybe Lo' La told the Anomaly a dirty joke in ancient Luxan and it was laughing too hard to slap us hard enough to kill us all."

I was starting to get annoyed. "All right, we can't stay in this Universe and we can't go back. So we go to plan B."

John turned away from me and leaned against the tree. A million different apologies went through my mind before I saw he was laughing. He turned, put his arms around me and lifted me off my feet. "What ever would I do without you, Aeryn?"

"I don't intend to let you find out, human. Depend on it." I whispered in his ear. We walked back to the K'hiff' tent.

The old K'hiff, Belunch, met us at the door of the tent. "Hammer's Regiment Command wants to see you all to get more intelligence on these Peacekeepers. They're sending a squad for you. They should be here tomorrow morning."

Body language! Was something wrong here? "Is that a bad thing?"

The K'hiff shrugged. "You do not know our history."

"All we know is history. Ancient history." John replied.  
The K'hiff guided us to a quiet corner of the tent. "We are a planet of some wealth in natural resources. The asantee trees, especially."

"Trees?" That was John.

"I do keep forgetting, " Belunch said apologetically. "The leaves are picked in spring and boiled down to a gooey sap. The sap is sold to a race called the Gentai some small distance from here. It's a medicine for a form of bone disease they suffer from."

"Virtually all organic medicines can be manufactured." That was Jool, suddenly joining us. "Given that humans have a technology similar to ours, any chemical plant should be able to provide the Gentai's medicine by the cubic metra."

Belunch looked at Jool and then questioningly at us. "Jool's a friend and a standup lady."

The old K'hiff nodded. It was strange to meet a race that actually seemed to understand John. "The Gentai are a race of bioengineers and have a strong distaste for what they consider to be products made by dead machines. And, I might add, there are millions of square kilometers or trees and many poor K'hiff capable of harvesting the leaves at low pay. I'm not sure a factory could compete economically even without the Gentai's preferences."

Jool and John promptly got into a discussion as to how big these "kilometers" were. Belunch waited for a microt and kept talking. Often the wisest course with John. "There are mines, built with off-world capital to the south, aromatic woods, and a wine far to the west that I hear sells well. There are other items of worth to off-worlders here."

"And off-worlders want them." John made a statement, not a question.

Belunch smiled ruefully. "Pancahate is a wealthy and powerful world not far from here. When other worlds were preoccupied, they hired Hammer's Slammers to "protect Pancahate's just interests" here. The other world's trading representatives were forced off the planet and Pancahate was the only customer for our wares."

"Wait one. Aren't these Slammers the group that works for the Prez?"

Belunch shook his head. "They are mercenaries. Three years ago they worked for Pancahate against us, today they are the heart of the Hurate's World Protective Force."

"A human army?" D'Argo had joined us. "Now that is something I'd love to see."

Belunch obviously didn't understand the sarcasm, assuming there was any, in D'Argo's remark. The K'hiff went on. "There's more than Hammer's Regiment. To the west of us are the Connaught Rangers, on the plains to the south are Waldenheim's Dragoons, and the deep forest to the north is patrolled by the Skutatoi, and more around the world. All are good units, but none can compare with the tanks of Hammer's Regiment, the more so since they have recruited some specialist companies to support them."

Tanks? My translator microbes must have missed another Earth word. How could liquid containers be dangerous?

"And, His Excellency has ten thousand regulars armed with off-planet infantry weapons and forty thousand militia. If he had the money, he could arm twice that number." We all turned to face the newcomer. He was another human, of course. Younger than most, I thought, although I could have been wrong. Young and fit, and in a uniform. A soldier I assumed.

"Major Guiscard." Belunch said quietly and turned away from the newcomer as if to exclude him from the conversation.

This Major Guiscard just smiled and pushed his way into our little group. "His Excellency has made long term contracts with the Albegnesians, on good terms for our dear competitors. He uses the money to buy modern weapons for his infantry, not to mention the artillery and anti-tank weapons he has hidden in the forests where he thinks no one knows about them."

Belunch sighed. "Major Guiscard is the military observer from Kersaint, another planet with which we have good relations." Belunch smiled unpleasantly at Guiscard. "Presumably those relationships will not be strained by Kersaint's military observer repeating groundless rumors?"

Guiscard laughed heartily. "Last time, Pancahate hired the Slammers and got them here before anyone knew what was happening. By the time the Albegnesians, or Kersaint, much less places like Minas Gerais or Gujerat had woken up, the Slammers we're all dug in and it would have taken a major war to blast them off planet again. An expensive major war." Guiscard turned his smile on Belunch. "His Excellency's plan, and a good one it is, is to become strong enough to fight long enough to give his off planet allies time to come and save his furry bacon." Guiscard lowered his voice. "The Albegnesians would prefer the planet be guarded by a less expensive version of the Hurate's World Protective Force. And, one paid by them, of course."

"And one loyal to the Albegnesians and not the K'hiff." Jool added.

"Beautiful and smart. You all will certainly have a fine future in our, what? Time? Universe? Where exactly did you come from I wonder? An alternate Universe? Or are we the alternate Universe?" Guiscard wondered.

Jool got him back on the subject. "We were talking about weapons for the K'hiff?"

Guiscard looked around to see if we were being watched. "His Excellency has bought overpriced weapons from the Albegnesians to arm his infantry. Good enough to become a power on this world, without being a danger to any off planet expeditionary force. But, he's also bought some artillery, anti-tank guns, and off-planet mercenaries to instruct his troops, all hidden deep in the northern mountains at the borders of his territory." Clearly, Guiscard was talking only to Belunch now. "Kersaint has no objection to this."

"And even if you did, you're too far away and too weak to do anything about it." Belunch sniffed.

Guiscard continued, but looked upset. "We can provide anything His Excellency needs. Artillery, armor, mines, powerguns, communications, AI, calliopes, personal armor. You name it, we can provide it."

Belunch nodded. "His Excellency wishes only to have the best relationships possible with all of his offworld allies." He then bowed to us and walked off. Guiscard glared at us and also walked off.

"You don't ever take me anyplace nice." John said.

I snuggled a little closer to John in the tent that the K'hiff had provided us. We had been discussing the conversation with Belunch earlier that evening. At least I had thought that we were. Why was he talking about me taking him someplace?

"Do you ever notice, Aeryn, that we never end up anyplace nice? We get shot into an alternate Universe and what do we get? A pleasure planet? A peaceful, quiet planet where the worst thing that ever happens is rain on prom night? No, we end up on a planet where one human army is sitting around waiting for another human army to invade and an army of Peacekeepers drops by instead. I bet this wouldn't happen if I dated Sikozu."

I waited a few microts and then elbowed him sharply in the ribs. I got a nice grunt for my efforts. "And, if you dated Sikozu, you'd have Scorpius for a best friend. And do you know who your new worst enemy would be?"

"Aeryn Sun?" Came the prompt reply.

"And, I do not take you to these places, John. We end up in places like this purely by accident. And if D'Argo's right about human armies, we have nothing to worry about except getting away from the Peacekeepers in the confusion. Do you know what I think we should do?"

Too late. John had already found something to do that I was enjoying too much to continue the conversation. 


	3. Chapter 3

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Three

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

John and his friends have been mysteriously shot into a stange new Universe, with a few shiploads of Peacekeepers tagging along. They find themselves nearly a thousand years in the future in a human dominated society. How will humans respond to the militaristic Peacekeepers? When we left John and Aeryn, um, er, well, lets just say they were in no peril. Not yet, anyway.

And now, on Farscape...

The next morning, I slid out of bed and left our tent. The first thing I discovered was that someone had taken down the latrine tent I had used the night before. I stopped a passing K'hiff and asked directions. Either my English was worse than I had thought or his was non-existent. He started leading me away from the center of the encampment. Just as I was about to pull away and try again, I saw the latrine tent. I thanked the K'hiff carefully in English and went inside.

I stopped dead as soon as I stepped inside. In front of me was something that I hated to see, Chiana standing between two armed guards looking perfectly innocent. I swore under my breath and wondered what the little trelk had done now. Something dreadful I was sure. President Azzule was standing on the far side of the tent with a group of his advisors. At their feet was a stretcher with the wounded Peacekeeper that had come with us. Kneeling by her side was the medic I had talked to about her.

President Azzule smiled. "Please forgive the subterfuge, Mrs. Crichton, but we need your assistance. We understand that this Peacekeeper can understand us, but Chiana's English is insufficient to convey her words to us. Can you do so?"

If Azzule needed translator microbes or me to tell what the commando was saying, he was denser than I had thought. She was cursing in a low monotone and reaching unsteadily for the medic.

The medic smiled at me. "I have her sedated still, Mrs. Crichton. She seems to be trying to attack me, but is too sedated to function properly." I walked over and knelt by the commando. Her eyes turned and tried to focus on me. "Sun, you frelling traitorous trelk. Tell these frelling beasts that I'll kill every one of them, all of them, do you understand? And you, surrender your weapon to me, you filthy traitor."

I stood up and walked back to the President with the commando still muttering in the background. "Most of it's obscenities. She hates me, and she wants to kill you. She thinks you're animals. She thinks the same of everyone who isn't a Peacekeeper. Is that what you wanted to know?"

A murmur ran through K'hiffs. The President waved them into silence. "Is there a possibility that the Peacekeepers, seeing themselves on the brink of destruction, would surrender to me? I would offer them excellent terms. They would be my allies, not my prisoners. We can be very generous, you know."

I shook my head. "Peacekeepers would never consent to serving under what they believe is an inferior race. Most of them will choose to fight to the death. A few survivors might choose to live and begin a new life. I did in a similar situation, but few of these will, I think."

Azzule sighed and Chiana broke the silence. "That's exactly what I said, Aeryn. That the frelling  
Peacekeepers would mostly die rather than accept anyone as their equal, much less their superior. A bunch of frelling moronic…." She stopped as she realized how I might interpret her remarks. "That's all right, Chiana. I remember what I was like a few cycles ago."

Chiana shot me a smile and immediately began talking to President Azzule about her knowledge of interstellar trade. I knew that her knowledge began and ended when she put her hand in someone's pocket and then left the planet, but Azzule could find that out for himself.

Azzule shushed her and turned back to me. "Again, forgive the subterfuge, but there are so few people we can really trust outside of our own." He then gave me a rather speculative look. "What I said applies to you and your husband as well. We can be generous for insight into the weapons, tactics and technology of these Peacekeepers."

"I'll have to discuss that with my husband. We know so very little about the whole Universe we find ourselves in. I don't know what we'll do." Well, that was totally true. I turned and started to walk out, but for some reason I turned around. "What about her?" I said, gesturing to the commando. "Will you kill her?"

Azzule grinned, not a reassuring sight with all those teeth. "Our civilized neighbors have taught us that if you kill your enemies, they will fight you to the death, but if you treat prisoners well, they will surrender to you. We hope, one day, to be civilized enough to vaporize our enemies at long range and not have to worry about such matters."

Azzule made some sort of a gesture to the medic. "Mrs. Crichton," the medic said, "I've figured out her body systems enough to keep her alive if she wants to stay that way, but I'll give you no guarantees when she no longer needs anesthetic. If she tries to kill us animals, we'll kill her. And that's a guarantee."

"Then tell her that. She'll understand you. And show her your weapons." I glanced around the room. "The Goddess alone knows why I'm trying. She wouldn't do the same for me."

"Because you're no longer a Peacekeeper." Chiana said quietly.

I nodded and walked off. The same K'hiff that had lead me here was waiting outside and politely directed me to the real latrine. This time, I didn't bother to thank him.

Heading back to our tent, I heard a familiar voice. "John, it's not like I've never seen you naked before. Now stop being silly."

I flipped open the tent flap and walked in. "You'd better have a frelling good reason to have seen John naked, Jool. And a better one for wanting to see him now."

Jool whirled around to face me. John stayed in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin. "Aeryn, I saw John when I had to treat him when he injured his head back when you were on Talyn. Now will you please tell John to get out of bed?"

John nodded to me. "That's the truth, Aeryn. I was doing my Burt Reynolds impersonation and Jool couldn't keep her eyes off of me. Happens all the time."

Jool whirled around again and faced John. "I couldn't keep my eyes off of you? You frelling human liar, I'll.."

I grabbed Jool by the shoulders and turned her around. "John likes his privacy and so do I. Now you just stay facing me and tell me what is so frelling important." I glanced at John. "Okay?" He nodded and got out of bed. Then he turned and waved at me, in a manner of speaking. He was halfway to his pants when D'Argo and Chiana barged in. He made a dive for the bed and shot back under the covers.

" John!" Both Chiana and D'Argo started their conversations with the same words, but I soon lost track as they both tried to yell over each other, what with Jool interrupting and John complaining.

"Silence!" John finally yelled. "Everyone, out of here. Except Aeryn, of course. I'm not talking to anyone without my pants on."

Jool, Chiana and D'Argo looked at each other, decided it was best to let John get dressed and left. Chiana looked back over her shoulder, though.

"Personally, I find that you're at your most persuasive when you don't have your pants on."

John grinned and was having trouble not laughing. "Don't start with me, Aeryn."

I carefully raised an eyebrow. "That could be taken a number of ways, human."

By this time, John was pulling his boots on. He stood and slipped Winona into his holster. "Wait a microt, when did you get your weapon back?" I asked.  
John reached under the pillow and handed my pistols to me. "While you were in the powder room, one of the K'hiffs brought them by. The carbines are under the bed."

"My trip to this power room was interrupted by President Azzule. He's looking for allies, even the two of us. He says he can be generous."

John rubbed his lip with his thumb. "Yeah, until he figures out we know squat about anything but people, places and things in another Universe. Then what do we do?"

"Maybe Jool, Chiana and D'Argo have some better news." I started.

"Yeah and maybe Rygel has taken up weightlifting in our absence. He's probably one buff Dominar by now."  
By that, I decided John didn't think our friends had good news. See? Humans can communicate.

When we walked out, Jool was talking. "Well, I do think that humans have a spare set of hands somewhere. That Guiscard had at least two pairs when he was talking to me." Chiana giggled. "All males have multiple hands, Jool. Ask Aeryn." Chiana grinned at me. "Does John have a spare set of hands, Aeryn?"

I grinned at John. "There are times when I know he has both hands on my butt and somehow my top comes unzipped."

John, of course, promptly changed the subject. "Okay, Jool, why do you need to see me? In the most personal sense of that word?"

Jool frowned, but must have decided John was just being John. "That human, Guiscard, came to see me last night. He offered me, and anyone who wants to come with me, the hospitality of Kersaint. We get more hospitality if we stay here and try to influence President Azzule to ally himself with Kersaint." Jool gave us all a grimace. "I told him I'd have to discuss it with you, but I had about as much of Kersaint's "hospitality" from Guiscard as I can stand."

John nodded. "Aeryn told me that Azzule offered a similar deal to us. All the Alpo we can eat and all the trees we can pee on, I guess." I ran the last sentence through my mind and decided not to hit John. For now.

Chiana laughed. "I got the offer from Azzule, and from Guiscard and a rather more detailed, and generous, offer from a Mr. Platt, the Economic Statistics Consultant of the Greater Albegnesian Free Trade Area."

"What the hell is an economic statistics consultant, Pip?"

Chiana rolled her eyes and gave John a smile. "He's a spy, John."

D'Argo cleared his throat. "John, I don't mean to be insulting to your race, but if the only thing between us and the Peacekeepers is a human army and the locals, I say we should take the first offer that lets us get off of this planet."

That was the wrong thing to say to John, but D'Argo completely missed it. "D'Arg, the locals waxed a Peacekeeper patrol and saved our eemas, remember?"

John slowly looked at each one of us. "I may not be the most impressive specimen you've ever seen, but I haven't done that badly, have I." That last was not put as a question.

"I'd say you're dead wrong about human armies. None of you have ever seen one before, have you? Even Commander Crichton hasn't seen one in nearly a thousand years." The new speaker walked out from behind the tent. Chiana nodded to him. "Mr. Platt."  
Platt nodded to us all. "I'm Platt and as the lovely Chiana has said, I'm an economics statistics consultant, with all that the title implies." He leaned against a tree and grinned. "If I understand the Peacekeeper's tactics, they depend on warships in orbit to soften up the opposition with these frag cannons and then use their aerospace craft to take out point targets? And then, and only then, they send in relatively lightly armed commandos. Am I correct?" He stared straight at me.

"I wouldn't refer to commandos as lightly armed, but that's an accurate description."

"You've never seen a Peacekeeper task force…" D'Argo began.

"And with all due respect you've never seen a human army, Captain Ka D'Argo." Platt's smile faded. "I understand that Peacekeepers depend entirely on the artillery aboard their warships. Warships whose engines blew up in the Anomaly and which are now drifting into the sun. You have no ground based artillery systems. Correct?" Before I could reply, he went on. "And no repair or maintenance facilities for your Prowlers and Marauders, except the ones on those ships headed for the sun? And no transport, armored vehicles, tanks, ground based aerospace defense or artificial intelligence assets?"

Jool broke in. "I have a degree in occupational psychology. While John may not be a soldier or completely typical of humans.."

"He's not at all typical." Platt growled. He seemed to be losing his temper. "He's a millenium out of date. And from what I can tell, even if you'd returned to his age, the human capacity for bloodshed would have surprised you, I'm sure. I strongly suggest you listen to me, since I actually know what's going on around here, and accept my offer."

"Which is completely honest and above board, with no catches. And you certainly have no agenda of your own to pursue?" John put in.

"I have.." Platt stopped. "I have no more time." I followed his eyes and saw a dozen or more K'hiff soldiers headed our way. When I turned back, Platt was headed away from us.

The K'hiffs had us backed against the tent, but kept their weapons slung. What appeared to be their leader gestured to his throat and spoke in good English. "The detachment from the Hurate's World Protection Force has arrived to convey you to Colonel Hammer's headquarters. His Excellency will also send his own troops to be sure."

There was an interesting sentence. To be sure of what? That we got where we were going? That we didn't accept an offer from one of Azzule's enemies?

John shrugged and headed off. I followed right behind. After a microt, D'Argo, Jool and Chiana did, too.

Our escort was a dozen or so human soldiers in some odd looking vehicles. One of the soldiers got out of a vehicle and approached us. "Commander Crichton?" John nodded and the soldier made some sort of gesture with her hand to her helmet. "Sergeant N'Demi, Commander. I' m the honcho of your escort. These my other passengers?"

John nodded again and the Sergeant looked us over. That gave me a chance to do the same to her. She was as tall as John and as skinny as Chiana. What I could see of her skin appeared to be black. She wore a tan coverall and what appeared to be body armor over her torso. The armor was covered with pockets, for her equipment I supposed. On her head was a dull black helmet with a clear faceplate. I could see what I took to be letters being projected onto the top of the faceplate and guessed it was some sort of comm system. She and the rest of the soldiers had long black rifles slung so as to hang in front of them.

She reached into the back of her vehicle and dragged out a set of body armor and tossed it to John. "Everyone wears a chicken suit, body armor. And a helmet. Regimental AI checked your sizes during your interview with President Azzule. Don't worry, it'll all fit. If you need help, putting it on, tell me." While she talked she took more armor out of her vehicle and threw it to us.

D'Argo just held his in has hand and stared at it. "I don't think I need to bother with human body armor. Or human soldiers." He let the armor slip out of his hands and fall to the ground. Sergeant N'Demi picked the armor up and held it over her head. "This is a Model XXI personal torso body armor set. It weighs 4.3 kilos and is made from a ceramic matrix. It'll stop flechettes from the weapons most of the locals carry, and it'll stop fragments from grenades or buzzbombs. It won't stop one of our powergun plasma bolts and it probably won't stop a plasma bolt from the weapons you have, except at a distance. It might stop enough of the bolt to keep your asses from getting totally fried." She threw the armor into D'Argo's midsection. "And you're all gonna wear 'em or you're gonna run along behind my team all the way to the friggin' headquarters, because I ain't taking responsibility for no clowns that don't follow orders. See?" She turned to John. "He can understand me, right."

John nodded slowly. "Oh, yeah. He can do that."

D'Argo was a few microts from a hyper rage, so John started to try to calm D'Argo down. "Look, Big Fella…"

The armor was hinged at the top so I slung it over my head and stuck my head through while strapping it closed. "John, if D'Argo doesn't want to associate with humans, or people who appreciate humans, he can stay here. Or he can go anyplace he frelling wants." I turned my back on John and D'Argo.

The vehicle that Sergeant N'Demi had gotten out of was a boxy vehicle with a rounded nose. It was open topped and had what appeared to be a weapon mounted on a pintle with a soldier standing behind it. Another soldier sat behind what I guessed was the control wheel. There was a narrow bench seat in the back for more passengers. There were three similar vehicles nearby. "What is this?" I asked the sergeant gesturing to the vehicle.

She grinned at me. Behind me, I could hear D'Argo starting to struggle into his body armor. "You're one of the soldiers, right?" I nodded. "This is a jeep." The sergeant said proudly. Frell! Human language seemed to be a conspiracy against translator microbes. She walked to the front of this jeep and patted it. "Our infantry support weapons are carried by jeeps. It's run by a power cell that's recharged from the heavyweights fusion bottles. The engine runs three fans that balance us on a cushion of air." She walked to the empty seat in the front where she had been sitting. "Under the seat is the AI, artificial intelligence, and the communications suite." She gestured to the weapon. "My team's jeeps carry a tri-barrel two centimeter powergun. Others carry mortars, grenade launchers, or buzz bombs. They'll also carry a whole load, or tow a whole load, of support equipment."

"What are those?" I pointed to four strange looking vehicles parked by the jeeps. They were long, narrow machines with some sort of control columns in the front. A soldier stood on each one, so I assumed they were also vehicles of some sort.

"Infantry skimmers." The sergeant said. "Our infantry rides 'em until we contact the enemy. Like the jeeps, the power cells on the skimmers run a pair of fans. Slammer infantry mostly carry a two-centimeter powergun. Because of the heat the plasma charge gives off when you fire, the rifles fire one shot for each trigger pull. Tri-barrels fire in bursts with two barrels being cooled by liquid nitrogen while the third is being fired."

I studied the vehicles and their crews. A similar sized Peacekeeper unit would be moved around the planet in transports with support from Prowlers and Marauders. But once on the ground, they'd be armed only with what they could carry. The vehicle-mounted humans would have heavier weapons, more mobility and more ammunition. I started to wonder whether the humans might not be a match for the Peacekeepers.

N'Demi handed me a helmet. "Since we don't want you screwing with our communications in an emergency, I've set the helmet's comms to talk to me only." She pulled more helmets out of the jeep and tossed one to each of the others. She checked the fit of my helmet and suddenly cursed under her breath. She slapped the side of my helmet lightly. "No problems, Mrs. Crichton." She gestured with her chin to something over my shoulder. "Our K'hiff escort just showed up. Freakin' mud movers. Those antiques will cut our speed in half. Shit."

Five wheeled vehicles filled with K'hiffs were headed our way. Filled with K'hiffs was no exaggeration. The K'hiff vehicles were no larger than the ones the humans used, but there appeared to be six or seven K'hiffs in each one. The engines were louder than any similar sized vehicle I'd ever heard and they did move on some sort of wheels.

The lead vehicle pulled up even with Sergeant N'Demi. "I am Captain Parsillifus, the commander of the escort. Are you ready?" The K'hiff announced. N'Demi just nodded to the K'hiff officer and tapped my on the shoulder. "The Crichtons are married, so a little togetherness won't bother them. In the back of my jeep, now." She gestured to the other three. "Captain D'Argo, in the second vehicle, Professor Jool…" N'Demi stopped. Chiana had already gotten in the third vehicle and had her arms around a good-looking human male. Jool glared at Chiana but ran back to the last jeep and hopped in. She was no sooner in, than the K'hiff took off.  
There was a burst of static in my ears and then I heard N'Demi's voice. "Gatta, get out front and take the point. Sulla, you're drag." Two soldiers on the skimmers took off and quickly passed the K'hiff vehicles. Two more hung back as we headed down the road. The road we used was little more than a well-worn track in the forest. The K'hiffs weren't going too fast, but they looked like they'd bounce out of their vehicles at any microt.

"Friggin' furballs." N'Demi's voice growled in my ear. "Let's see how their Captain does if it hits the friggin' fan."

"I was here when they were the enemy, Sarge." Another voice replied. "They did okay with crap for weapons. They'll do a lot better now." There was a pause. "A lot of the dumb asses'll die, but they do okay."

"Let's not be dumb asses, then." N'Demi replied under her breath.

John and I were crammed into the back of the vehicle. N'Demi was right. A little togetherness was no problem. John leaned over and pressed his helmet against mine so we could talk without using the comm unit in the helmet. "You were a little tough on D'Argo back there."  
"He's a little tough on humans. Especially one human." I thought I heard John chuckle. "Besides, John, we have no guarantee we'll ever be able to leave this Universe. If we can't get along with the local humans, we are so screwed." That last was in English, and it did get a chuckle out of John. It did make him think, though.

We rode a cushion of air about a third of a motra above the ground. Within microts of leaving Azzule's headquarters, we started running into more K'hiffs. Those headed in our direction were soldiers. They marched in long columns on each side of the road with plenty of space between each K'hiff. To each side of the marching columns were detachments guarding the flanks. At the head of each column was a command group consisting of a few humans, a few K'hiffs and what was obviously a comm unit carried by a sweating K'hiff. The biggest weapons I saw were some tubular devices, easily carried by a single K'hiff. Apparently Azzule's heavy weapons, assuming he had any, were still being held back. Those headed in the other direction were apparently wounded or load carrying porters.

I commented to N'Demi on the discipline of the K'hiff troops. She turned in her seat and smiled back at me. "We have a militia battalion coming up according to my point man. Wait till you get a load of them."

We rounded a turn and almost ran into the frelling militia. Our K'hiff escort had stopped and their vehicles blocked our path. Their way was blocked by a large smooth-skinned gray creature that appeared to be a beast of burden. The beast was sitting on its haunches in the middle of the road, shedding packages of food from a poorly tied on packsaddle. Our escort commander was screaming obscenities to one and all. Another civilian K'hiff was standing nose to nose with him screaming obscenities right back. The beast's handlers were contributing to the chaos by simultaneously pushing the beast's head to the right and pulling his hindquarters to the left. One group tried to remove his pack and re-tie it, while another group tried to put the spilled foodstuffs back in the pack. All of this was being done with all parties screaming at each other. Only the beast seemed to calm.

"Shit!" N'Demi spat out. "Our genius K'hiff commander has him a fight with one of the Top Dogs."

"What the frell is a Top Dog?" John asked. N'Demi swung herself around in the seat to face us. "Religious leaders. President Azzule's supporters are mostly the trading clans from the coastal areas and the regular army. Most of the valley is farming villages and the big noise in them are the Top Dogs, the religious leaders. Only a few of the Top Dogs support President Azzule, but no two of 'em can agree on anything. So, the Top Dogs may hate Azzule and his new ideas, but can't get together to do squat about it. "

N'Demi swiveled back around and checked the blocked road ahead of us. If anything the chaos was worse. Most of the militia unit seemed to have stopped along the roadside. A few had joined the argument between the K'hiff captain and the Top Dog. A few more had decided to try to lift the beast's back end up off of the road. Of course, not bothering to coordinate with those pushing and pulling the poor beast or trying to load or unload him. One group decided to start cooking a meal over an open fire and a second group sat down in front of our jeep and began to play what I suspected was a gambling game. Another K'hiff casually urinated in the road. Two leaned on the jeep and began to examine the strange off world vehicle and its passengers. I decided that humans were not the least organized and disciplined race in the Universes. Not that I'd tell John that, of course.

Finally John leaned over to talk to N'Demi. "Shouldn't you try to sort this cluster frell out?"

N'Demi shook her head. "We fought here a couple of years back against these people. A lot of what is now Azzule's regular army were recruited as auxiliaries to the mercenary units that served here, on both sides. Most of the Top Dogs fought against us. But they won't do nothing unless we get them riled up and they lose their tempers. Better just to wait 'em out."

We sat there for a quarter of an arn while the argument got louder and the situation more chaotic. Suddenly the beast of burden got up and started wandering off the road, his load spilling on the roadway as he headed for a tree to eat some fruit there. In a few more microts his load was shoved off to the side of the road and we were again on our way.

"How the frell does anyone expect those amateurs to fight off anyone?" John muttered into his helmet radio.

N'Demi laughed. "The regulars ain't bad and they're getting' a lot better what with new weapons and advisors. And they are one tough group. Shoot off their arms and legs and they'll still try to bite you to death. Ask Lance Corporal Cuchillo about the convoy he ran up the Clobnucar road when we fought here three years ago." She gestured amiably to the soldier manning the heavy weapon in the jeep.

"Shit fire." Cuchillo raised his faceplate and spat to the side. "Intel told us there was seven or eight thousand K'hiff-sized heat sources on either side of the damned road. The convoy was forty or so hovertrucks. We had two platoons of infantry and a platoon of combat cars, plus artillery in support and the whole freakin' regiment if we stepped in the shit." He stopped and ran his eyes over the horizon for a few microts. "We did step in it for sure. We opened up on them at about one click. In spite of their being under cover in the trees, we could see 'em as heat sources on our sights. We used our AI to target our indirect fire assets and our supporting arty. We blew the shit out of 'em, but they just kept coming. There was on group of maybe three hundred that seemed to be assigned to take out the jeep I was on. Probably no more than a hundred finally came out of the woods, but they kept coming. They never made it to the jeep, but they knocked two infantrymen off their skimmers and swarmed them under. A lucky shot from our tri-barrel gunner set off a buzzbomb they were carrying and blew a bunch of them away. Otherwise I think they would have gotten our jeep. As it was, we circled the damn convoy and waited for help. It took a damned panzer company and three companies of combat cars to get us through. I heard the artillery commander was thinking about using a nuke on the valley." He ran his eyes over the horizon again. "A nuke on a bunch of damned indigs." 


	4. Chapter 4

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Four

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

John and Aeryn and their friends have met with a squad from the human mercenary regiment, Hammer's Slammers who are, quite unintentionally, telling our heroes about life in the 30th century. Lance Corporal Cuchillo has just finished telling J&A about his experiences in a war on Hurate's World three years before.

And now on Farscape...

N'Demi continued. "I hear the old man is thinking of raising a regiment of K'hiffs for use off world. Get 'em good weapons and senior ranks from the Slammers. Use them for jobs that the Slammers are too expensive for."

"Why the Hell do you people become mercenaries, anyway?" John asked suddenly. "Why do you want to fight other peoples' wars for them?"

"Some people just like being soldiers, for sure." N'Demi replied. "But these days, most governments treat you like shit if you got no money or power. Got land a big corporation wants? You lose it, fast. Piss off a politician? End up in jail, or worse. Got anything anyone else wants? Don't ask anyone to take care of you." N'Demi shrugged. "You actually born on Earth before FTL flight, sir?"

John nodded." A Hell of a long time ago, I guess."

"Hammer's Regiment isn't really a mercenary unit. We're really just a very small country where everyone is in the army, Commander Crichton."

"Jesus," John said under his breath. But that was worth thinking about.

N'Demi whipped around in her seat to face forward again. "Damn, damn and damn." She had gotten some bad news on her comm set, but I had no idea how bad it might be until we rounded a curve. Ahead of us was a mass of K'hiffs, who all appeared to be civilians, or at least they were unarmed. They included the first female K'hiffs I had seen. They had the wider hips and breasts that a female that gave birth to live mammal children would require. Standing near me was what I took to be a young female with a child on her hip. She was dressed in a long, tight skirt made from a rough local cloth. The cloth was dyed in alternate red and white stripes. Around her shoulders she had a green shawl. Older females seemed to prefer looser and darker garments.

I stared at her and her child and thought of our children.

We left her behind as N'Demi forced the jeep through the mass of K'hiff. Finally, we could see our two pointmen stopped at a bridge. They were talking to a very large human who has stripped off his shirt to reveal skin as black as N'Demi's. N'Demi jumped out of the jeep and headed for the group of humans. John followed her and I followed John.

"What kind of crap is wrong with this freakin' bridge?" N'Demi demanded, pushing past the two infantryman.

The shirtless human male just smiled. "What kind of crap is wrong with this freakin' bridge, Sir, I believe you meant to say."

N'Demi bit back whatever reply she had started on. "Yes sir. What's the problem, er…"

"Captain Napoleon Bonaparte Dessalines, of Second Company, Regiment du Genie de Vendee. Your servant, mesdames and messieurs." This one was no taller than John, but appeared to weigh about as much as D'Argo and John combined. Most of him seemed to be muscle. The male human gestured vaguely behind him "The invading soldiers are headed this way, driving the K'hiff before them. Local merchants had just begun moving some goods into the village ahead when the first wave of refugees arrived. Sensibly, they turned around and ran. Not so sensibly, they drove both of their trucks over a very shaky indigenous bridge. The first broke through the surface of the bridge and the second rammed the first. Wheeled transport can't go on the bridge, and I can't let a mob of civilians on the bridge while my men effect repairs." Suddenly the human's smile returned to his face. "But this need not affect you, Sergeant. Your vehicles can ride over the surface of the water as easily as over dry ground. There, your problems are over."

N'Demi didn't look like her problems were over. "Captain, my problems drive wheeled jeeps right now." N'Demi suddenly swiveled her head around. "Speaking of which, where are those damn fool would-be praetorian guards? They should all be lined up here demanding that the bridge be repaired immediately or someone be shot, at the very least."

N'Demi fiddled with a control on the side of her helmet. I could just barely hear someone talking to her over the comm set. "Oh, Lord." She said and headed off to the middle of a mob of refugees. John and I started to follow, but N'Demi stopped us. "You three," I noticed Chiana had joined us, "stay here with the jeeps. I do not need this unit spread all over the friggin' landscape with hostiles in the vicinity. Move." We moved.

"What is all this about, John?" Chiana piped up. I had noticed that D'Argo and Jool were deep in conversation. Chiana had come over looking for some company, I supposed. Fine. There were thousands of people she could bother all around her.

"Refugees have blocked the bridge and a load of Peacekeepers are headed this way, Pip. That's all I know."

Chiana pouted. "What does he know?" Pointing to the soldier manning the weapon on N'Demi's jeep.

John grinned at her. "Find out. He's a guy isn't he?"

Chiana smiled and climbed onto the jeep and sat down next to the soldier and began talking in her limited English. He just stared back at her and replied, "Lo siento mucho, senorita. No hablo Ingles."

Chiana stared at him for a few microts. Suddenly Chiana realized she was being made fun of. "Frell you, Crichton. Don't any humans have frelling translator microbes?"

The soldier laughed and lifted up his visor. "So, "Find out. He's a guy, isn't he." is it, Commander Crichton?" He laughed again and shook his head. "So Slick don't tell you shit and you want to know what's happening?"

Chiana moved closer to the soldier and very carefully nodded her head for yes, smiling at him all the time. Hmm. Dealing with humans was a lot like dealing with a young Vorlag.

"Slick is Sergeant N'Demi?" John asked.

"Not to her face, Commander. No, not to her face if you want to live to pension time."

"Okay, not to her face and if anyone says anything, we didn't hear it from you. Now can you tell us what's going on here on this planet?"

The soldier, Cuchillo, as I remembered, reached out and worked something on the side of our helmets. As soon as he was done with mine, I saw a representation of this planet on the helmet screen. No, it was this planet, from space. Cuchillo's voice came over my headphones. "We launch thousands of micro-satellites. They handle communications, intelligence, weather, and anything else we need. Too friggin' many of them to knock down unless you really work at it." Obviously the Peacekeepers hadn't worried about it. Cuchillo continued and the view changed to an area of the planet as seen from a dozen metras or so up. "The blue pulsing dot is us. The red dots represent the enemy. There are two big groups already on the plains, one maybe twenty clicks west of here," The scale on the screen suddenly changed and I saw two blobs of red dots, "and the second is some two hundred clicks away." The screen returned to showing just our area. "So much for the big picture. Regiment's south of here, but should be able to move most of our maneuver elements and attachments up before the enemy can meet up. Get between 'em and bash 'em one at a time, the Colonel will.

Our platoon's problems is a couple groups that hit the K'hiffs. Over ran a good-sized village and chased the militia and civilians out. The refugees you see here are from there. The militia is mostly milling around, getting in their own way and tripping over themselves, back a ways, closer to the village."

The three of us cranked our heads around and stared off to where the village should be. I was sure I could smell smoke and chakon oil. Cuchillo kept talking. "One enemy group of maybe sixty or seventy grabbed a bunker complex outside the village and another of maybe a hundred grabbed the local Top Dog's personal fortress. All the local militia were out chasing their tails and they forgot to post a guard on their home base. The Peacekeepers just walked, put their feet up and made themselves at home."

I examined the map projected on my helmet and tried to make sense of the markings that appeared and disappeared on the map. Why couldn't the frelling humans design a sensible alphabet? Because, of course, if humans were like that, there'd be no mystery and wonder about them and no poor, susceptible ex-Peacekeeper would be bothered with falling in love with one. Frell! I was doing too much thinking entirely.

"So we just sit here until the bridge gets repaired and then we're back on our way, right?" I asked the sergeant. I suspected the answer would be no. He didn't disappoint me.

Cuchillo shook his head. "Politics. The local Top Dog is a big noise named Serrepatti. He's just about the only Top Dog in these parts that supports President Azzule. Gives him a lot of weight in politics. He wants his damned village and his private fort back. He's bitching to Azzule and Azzule is bitching to the Albegnesian ambassador who whines, in a very diplomatic way, to Colonel Hammer. And, like it or not, the politicians pay the bills. If we win the war and loose the peace, we're less likely to get hired in the future."

That really didn't look like it bothered Cuchillo at all. I got the feeling he felt about politicians the way I did. Even the way John did.

"So," Cuchillo continued, "I patched myself into N'Demi's comm link. Um, that's another thing you don't want to mention." He grinned. "She knows, but she can't afford to let anyone know she knows, if you get my drift."

John nodded and grinned back. "No problem, but what's the news?"

"Command is telling N'Demi to provide support for the local militia and whatever regulars Azzule contributes, which will probably be zip." He suddenly chuckled. " Old Slick will be pushing puppies around for a week to get this one up and running."

"Whoa," John interrupted. "I thought we were hot property. That we absolutely, positively had to be at your headquarters and last week."

Cuchillo shrugged. "Things aren't so critical now. The Light Cav ran over a bunch of the Peacekeepers on the plains earlier today and the calliopes nailed a bunch of their fighters when they tried to attack. Those Peacekeepers may be aliens, but they can be had."

That gave me something to think about. If only I knew what the frell the Light Cav and a calliope were. But human soldiers didn't think much of Peacekeepers. That was new.

Cuchillo gestured to the tree line. "N'Demi's on her way back. I'd guess she'll be looking for something to bite, so be careful."

N'Demi stomped back to the jeep and threw herself in her seat and began doing something with the AI unit. "Okay, we get to go try to run a campaign with the indigs" She turned to the three of us. "This is where you get out. I'll pick you up after this mess is over." She turned away from us.

"No way." Strangely, both John and I said the same thing at the same time in the same language.

N'Demi stopped whatever she was doing and turned to face us. She was not a happy human. "I don't have time for this, Commander Crichton..." she started.

"You don't have time to keep us alive?" John broke in.

"What do you mean?" N'Demi was a little confused. I was interested to find John had that effect on humans, too. "The whole idea of leaving you here is to keep you alive, Commander."

John swept his arm around to the K'hiffs around us. "None of these people have any real reason to love humans, but I bet they have a lower opinion of Sebaceans right about now. " N'Demi looked like she was going to speak, but John just kept talking louder. "My wife is Sebacean and I know the K'hiffs can tell her scent from a human. As a matter of fact, if any of the Peacekeepers wandering in the woods show up here, none of us will live too long. Got that Sergeant Slaughter?"

Before N'Demi could say anything, Chiana broke in, very carefully in English. "Besides, we kick ass." She smiled at John and hugged herself after getting that out.

I decided I'd better have my say. "We know about Peacekeepers. John says no plan survives contact with the enemy, in addition to keeping us where we can be protected from anyone, we'll be around when you have to start making it up as you go along." Frell. I sounded just like John. He knew it, too. He could hardly keep from laughing. Luckily, N'Demi didn't notice. She just shook her head. "Okay, but make sure we all get killed if things turn to shit. I don't want to explain a bunch of dead friendlies to Major Steuben."

We called D'Argo and Jool over. D'Argo was thrilled at the thought of a fight with Peacekeepers, and Jool was not, but she didn't want to stay with the K'hiffs. We loaded into the jeeps and headed off the road and back into the forest, with our K'hiff escort rattling behind. In about ten microns we arrived at a small clearing in the forest where a couple of dozen K'hiffs milled around. N'Demi jumped on the front of the jeep as soon as it stopped. "Okay, people, I need you to lay down suppressing fire on the damned bunkers until I can shoot the enemy out of it." That was greeted with a rumble of approval. "And don't try charging the damned bunkers until I give the word." That brought a roar of disapproval. N'Demi turned to the K'hiff captain who was in charge of our escort. "Get these people of yours in line. If they try charging a bunker with Peacekeepers inside that are still full of piss and vinegar, they'll get their furry asses nailed good. And Azzule won't like that." The last sentence seemed to do the trick and in a few microns he had bellowed down all of the opposition. The K'hiff went off, and sooner than I had expected, we heard gunfire ahead of us.

"Okay, Mrs. Crichton, you're the ex-Peacekeeper, right?"

I nodded to N'Demi. As much as I knew the Peacekeepers would kill me and John in a microt, I always felt strange when I had to fight Peacekeepers. I hadn't stopped me from killing them, though.

N'Demi grinned. "Okay, come with me and see how you like our plan."

"No way." That was John, of course. "Barbie does not go anyplace to play without G. I. Joe."

N'Demi seemed to understand that John meant that he stayed with me and nodded. "Okay, Commander Crichton, you come too."

She nodded to her driver and we took off, with the other jeeps following until we stopped at the base of a small ridge, no more than ten motras high. N'Demi reached over and did some adjusting to the sides of our helmets. "Okay, you two will get the same feed as my helmet, less some graphics from regiment that would probably just confuse you. They freakin' confuse me."

The view of the ridge had been replaced with an overhead view of a bunker complex. Most of it was underground, but you could see trench lines around the perimeter and a few gun slits. The view changed and we now saw the complex as if we were no more than fifty motras in front of it. N'Demi's voice sounded in my earphones. "The first shot was a composite from a couple of our recon satellites, what you're looking at now is from a drone about two hundred meters from the complex. Now, " N'Demi did something with her helmet controls and a detailed representation of the complex appeared on my faceplate. "This is from our engineer database, and it's the bunker complex we're planning on flattening." In a microt, the bunker drawing was superimposed over the shot of the bunker taken from space. "As you can see, we can tell where each firing slit is on the bunker by matching it against the engineers' plans." Several dozen areas of the bunker started flashing in red. N'Demi continued. "The bunker's mostly logs with a couple of feet of dirt between 'em for the walls and three rows of logs layered crossways for the roof. We shoot into the firing slits and sooner or later whittle the enemy down to the point that the K'hiff can rush them. See any problems?"

I for one could see nothing but problems and I wasted no time bringing them up. "In order to hit these gun slits, you'll have to get on top that frelling bunker and even with the K'hiff militia and a few regulars and mercenaries supporting them, the Peacekeepers will shoot your jeeps to bits. Is that a problem?"

"I think she's got you, Sarge." John grinned.

"Not a bit, Mrs. Crichton." N'Demi stopped for a microt. "Do you have some sort of rank, other than Mrs. Crichton?"

"Officer Aeryn Crichton will do."

She gestured to my pistol. "That fires a plasma burst, right?"

I nodded and dropped my hand to the butt of my pistol from force of habit. "It uses chakon oil, a very volatile, refined natural substance."

"So, your plasma weapon depends on the natural volatility of the ammo?" I nodded and N'Demi went on. "Our plasma weapons get a boost from a power cell. So much so that we need to cool the barrel with liquid nitrogen, remember? And that means.."

I finished the sentence for her. "That means that your weapons are more powerful and longer ranged than ours. You still have to hit the target." I had no desire to bring up the subject of human's chronically poor eyesight with John around.

N'Demi just grinned and did something with the artificial intelligence unit under the dashboard of the jeep. "Okay. I have the AI connected to the engineer and intelligence databases and the whole thing slaved to the fire control for the tri-barrels. The feed is going to your helmets. Hang on you two, and watch."

I grabbed a handhold just as the jeep shot up over the ridgeline in front of us. Just as quickly the jeep dropped, shot off to the right and then shot into the air again. The jeep bounced from side to side and up and down, but the fire control reticule projected onto my helmet remained locked on the same place on the bunker ahead of us. After a micron or two, the jeep settled back to the ground. "Do you think that'll work, Officer Crichton?" N'Demi asked. I nodded my head.

It was nearly another arn before the attack started, though. The four mercenary infantrymen with us, and the small number of K'hiff regulars available could hardly get the militia to do anything. The individual K'hiff seemed to consider orders as nothing more than a basis for discussion and the local Top Dog, Serrepatti, seemed to want to argue with every decision made. Finally, I heard one of the mercenaries on the helmet communicator. "Sarge, we may as well get this under way. I have about half the militia good to go, and the rest are arguing about God knows what, but I think they're starting to snipe at the bunker from the far side."

"Okay, Gatta." N'Demi responded. "I think they'll come around when the shooting starts. Just keep them back until we do a job on the bunkers. I don't want our damned allies getting chopped in one of their dumb ass headlong assaults. Okay?"

Before Gatta replied, our jeep shot into the air and hovered for a few microts just over the ridge and let loose a burst from the tri-barrel. I could see dirt vaporizing and wood bursting into flame. The point of view projected on the screen in my helmet kept changing as N'Demi ran through feed from satellites, ground-hugging drones and from other mercenaries. I heard N'Demi announce that enemy infantry was being sent into the trenchline in front of the bunkers. I saw a head lift over the rim of the trench and fire a pulse rifle blast. The view changed to a close up and I saw a figure in a green jumpsuit pop up and fire a burst from the trench and just as quickly drop back down. Frell. They were using techs in combat. I saw him rise up again, but this time he was met with a burst from our tri-barrel. When the dust cleared, all I could see were a pair of bloody legs in green rags laying in front of the trench and what looked like some pieces of a pulse rifle.

The so-called infantry in the trench didn't last long and we soon were back to blasting the firing slits. As the dirt and foliage was blown away from the slits, the K'hiff were able to target them with buzzbombs, grenade launchers and their other projectile weapons. Occasionally, fire would be returned from the bunkers, but the Peacekeepers seemed to be laying low.

A lucky hit from a buzzbomb set off an explosion inside the bunkers. "Damn!" I heard someone scream. "That looks like they hit a fuel dump the K'hiffs left behind." I could see flames and smoke pouring from the bunkers.

"Aw shit." I heard N'Demi scream. "Gatta! The damned K'hiff are charging. Hold em' back. I can only use two damned tri-barrels because they're in the freakin' way."

I could see K'hiff militiamen running for the bunker, firing their weapons as they went. The Goddess knew how they managed to keep from shooting each other. And, as soon as the Peacekeepers in the bunker saw that the tri-barrels weren't firing on them anymore, they started to fire into the mass of K'hiffs pouring out of the trees towards them.

"Cease fire, dammit!" N'Demi screamed. The jeep rose over the top of the ridge and dropped down on the other side. N'Demi advanced to half a metra of the bunker complex trying to find a clear field of fire. Finally she gave up. "Team N'Demi." She called over the communicator. "We'll leave the jeeps just this side of the busted trenchline. The damned K'hiff are taking casualties they don't need to, but they have broken in, I think."

"Affirm, Sarge." That was Gatta, somewhere ahead of us. The feed to my helmet changed to the bunker complex itself. I must be seeing things from Gatta's perspective. Suddenly a Peacekeeper in full armor burst from a side passage and fired at Gatta. I could see Gatta stagger backwards, but he lifted his powergun and fired. The bolt punched a hole in the Peacekeeper's armor and he flew backwards to land in the mud.

"Gatta?"

"Yeah, Sarge. I got me some burns, but my armor didn't get too badly penetrated and stopped most of it. That bastard must have waited for a dozen K'hiffs to go past to get to me."

"Damned little good it did him." N'Demi replied.

We reached the trenches and dismounted the jeeps. My memories are a jumble of images. A group of K'hiff firing a buzzbomb into a bunker. The warhead exploded and knocked them all over backwards. They all jumped up and prepared to fire another one in after the first. This one knocked them over, too, and they jumped back ready for another try.

John checking the body of a Commando. In spite of not having a mark on her, she was dead.

I walked past a K'hiff holding onto his wrist and looking at where his hand had been a few microts before. Next to him, two of his comrades were too busy looting a dead Peacekeeper to help. I put a tourniquet on him and wished I could have done more.

I saw a mercenary calling into a shattered bunker for the occupants to surrender. Each time he demanded their surrender, they fired back at him and the K'hiffs gathered around the mercenary would fire grenades into the bunker. Finally his calls for surrender brought no reply.

I walked around a corner and right into a group of Peacekeeper prisoners, huddled against the side of a trench between two bunkers. Two were middle-aged techs, a man and a woman. Two were cadets, the boy was perhaps into his teens and the girl was not. The girl seemed to be barely conscious. The boy was bleeding from a scalp wound and appeared to be stunned. They were guarded by a single K'hiff regular who seemed to take little interest in his charges. Several militiamen were standing nearby looking at the prisoners and fingering long knives. This was not good. 


	5. Chapter 5

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Five

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

Aeryn, John and their friends have joined in a human led K'hiff assault on a bunker complex occupied by Peacekeepers. As Peacekeeper resistance crumbles, Aeryn comes across a small party of Peacekeeper prisoners.

And now on Farscape...

"Report!" I barked to the prisoners.

The man stared at me. In my armor and helmet he must have assumed I was another human.

"Med Tech Rami Tolls, and this is Comm Tech Orli Kem."

The boy seemed to come out of his daze a little. "I'm junior cadet Rohdri Bahannon, you will talk to me. I'm in charge here."

"You're not in charge of anything anymore." I growled at him. "Now listen, all of you." I noticed the male had put his arm around the woman protectively. Well, techs didn't have to meet the high standards of warriors, thank the Goddess. Long term relationships among techs did occur and while frowned upon, command rarely did anything about it unless it became too obvious.

"Listen to her, Cadet." Tolls said.

I squatted down beside them. "You've been captured. There's a good chance that the Peacekeepers will lose this battle and you'll be isolated in this part of the Universe for the rest of your lives. Even if you do win, you'll be considered irreversibly contaminated and the surviving Peacekeepers will have neither the means of the interest in getting you off this planet. Do you understand that?"

The techs nodded and the boy just stared. The girl didn't seem to be aware of me. "The K'hiff, the locals, are interested in recruiting people with useful skills. Certainly a medical tech qualifies. Did you save any supplies?"

Tech Tolls nodded and gestured to a black canvas bag nearby. "They checked it for weapons, but left everything alone."

I turned to the woman. "You can be of use, too. Do you two want to live?"

Both techs nodded. The boy didn't move.

I stood and approached the K'hiff guard. "Do you speak English."

He nodded. "I spik 'N'glis. Better den you I t'ink."

That was all I needed, a comedian. "These people want to defect to President Azzule. President Azzule needs technically trained people, as you know. He will reward you for bringing these people to him, I'm sure." That last part finally got his attention. For the first time, he seemed to show some interest in his prisoners.

I turned back to the prisoners. "Remember, these people don't have translator microbes. You may have to learn their language. You'll have to learn a great deal, and unlearn a lot more." I thought about my own situation for a microt. "You will probably find your new lives are different from the old ones, but better."

I turned and started down the trench when the male called after me. "Are you former Officer Aeryn Sun?"

I almost admitted to it. But they were still highly indoctrinated Peacekeepers, even if they were still in shock over being defeated and taken captive. Would advice from the despised traitor Aeryn Sun be taken? "No, I'm a human, like my husband." I answered back without turning around. As I turned the corner of the trench I ran straight into John. He made no effort to hide a huge grin.

We found only two more Peacekeeper prisoners, both badly injured. The first one died before I could do more than check him out. The second had a severe chest wound, but I thought he might be able to get help. I ran back to where I had left the prisoners. Only three were there. The male cadet was gone. "What happened to the boy?" I asked Tolls.

He shrugged. "He tried to grab one of the alien's weapons. They killed him."

I swore softly, but only for a microt. "I need your medical help for an injured Commando. Will you help?" Tolls reached for his bag and found the guard's rifle in his face.

"Stay!" The guard growled. I started to argue with the guard until I saw John headed for me. One look at his face was enough to tell me that I was already too late. I turned and tried to make the guard see some sense. "This man is a healer. These are his tools. You need to let him keep them. President Azzule will want to know where his tools are."

The guard snarled at me, but picked up the black bag, and after carefully examining it, handed it to the tech.

"Hey, Commander and Officer Crichton. Up here." I looked up to see one of the mercenaries standing on the edge of the trench looking down at us. " Sergeant N'Demi is ready to go. We got us a second target remember?"

I nodded and then turned back to the prisoners. "You'll find humans aren't so bad. Good luck."

I was walking away with John when the woman called to me. "Good luck to you, Officer Sun, and thank you." I kept walking.

N'Demi was ready to leave as soon as John and I got back to the jeeps. "We have some good news for a change, Officer Crichton. We finally got through to Santa Barbara Central. The Regiment doesn't have a battery in range of us, but the light cav has a section of infantry guns. We're going to use them on the Top Dog's personal, private fort and blow the shit out of it."

Blowing up the local Top Dog's property seemed to main point of that statement but I wasn't too sure what the rest was about. Neither was John, apparently.

"Mind running that by us again? Everything after the good news part?"

N'Demi swore and then apologized. "Sorry. I keep forgetting that this is all completely new to you people. You don't know from nothing about anything."

"No problemo, Sarge. I've felt that way for a few years now."

Again, Sergeant N'Demi did something with the artificial intelligence unit in the jeep. "Okay, people. Show and tell time. I have this patched into your helmets, Commander Crichton. Everyone listening?"

We got acknowledgements from D'Argo, Jool and Chiana. N'Demi continued. "Hammer's Regiment is a mercenary armored regiment, roughly five thousand effectives. The main combat power of the regiment is the tank battalion. Seventy plus 170 ton armored, air cushioned vehicles, run off of fusion bottles rather than power cells like the jeeps. They're armed with 20 centimeter powerguns." She reached up and slapped the power gun mounted on the jeep. "This tri-barrel is a 2 centimeter job. The tank gun just ain't ten times bigger, it's about a hundred times more powerful. Okay so far?"

We all nodded. Hezmana! I wasn't positive just how heavy 170 human tons was, but it was a lot frelling bigger than anything the Peacekeepers had ever thought of using on a planet. But what the frell this had with liquid containers, I hadn't a clue.

N'Demi continued. "Next is two battalions of combat cars. Bigger than jeeps, smaller than tanks. They've got mebbe one hundred and sixty combat cars, plus command vehicles. Combat cars go about thirty tons, are run by a fusion bottle like the tanks, and most have three 2-centimeter tri-barrels. A few are rigged with some 5 centimeter stuff, but I hear that's an experiment that ain't workin' too well."

"Next," N'Demi stood and waved her arms at the mercenaries around us, " is the infantry battalion." That brought a ragged cheer from her soldiers. "Ten infantry on skimmers is a squad. Three squads, plus command and heavy weapons in jeeps is a platoon. Four platoons is a company and four companies is a battalion. An' no matter what the damned panzer boys brag about, you'll always need infantry and you ain't ever gonna have too much infantry." That brought a murmur of approval that I was not surprised to find that I joined in.

"Lastly, we got an artillery battalion. Twenty-four tubes, that is, twenty-four guns, firin' rocket propelled 200 millimeter shells out to between ninety and a hundred and twenty clicks. Santa Barbara Central is the nickname for the AI that handles fire control for the artillery. Named after the patron saint of gunners."

N'Demi stood with her hands on her hips and looked down at us. "Everybody got the picture so far?" We all did.

"Lastly, we got the companies. Companies are smaller than battalions. So you got a headquarters company, supply company, medical company, engineering company, and so on and so forth. And that's Hammers Slammers." She waited just a microt and added, "Usually."

That got some grins from the mercenaries. I was beginning to understand how John must have felt when he arrived on Moya, trying to absorb a mountain of new information.

"The Hurate's World Protective Force is the toughest damned force anyone's put together in a hell of a long time. There's a total of ten regimental sized units on planet. Normally you'd get one or two first class units like us, and the rest would be low grade infantry regiments to mop up and do garrison work when the shooting stops. Not here. Every one of the units is top of the line. And even so, Hammer's Slammers are still the best. That's why Colonel Hammer was picked to command the Force. An' that means he's gotta worry about more an' just the Slammers."

N'Demi pointed over the hill to where the damaged bridge was. "We hired us an engineer construction company as well as Rodino's Armoured Sappers, to work on keepin' the damned infrastructure in one piece so logistics work right an' you don't have a damned convoy of ammo sitting in a damned swamp with a freakin' blown bridge at either end."

"Naturally," N'Demi continued, "we got a lot of logistics and support type units to handle a force of over sixty thousand, but we'll talk about combat power. Colonel Hammer's hired him a battery of long range missiles. He can provide fire support to anyone on this continent with them. He's got a calliope unit, too."

The sergeant waved at John as he started to say something. "And no, Commander, we don't use the calliope in the regimental band, which we ain't got anyway." I still had no idea what a frelling calliope was.

N'Demi kept talking. "A calliope has a dozen 5 centimeter powerguns mounted together and fired together. A calliope can knock anything that sticks its nose over the freakin' horizon from a light spaceship in low orbit to an artillery shell a couple of clicks in the air. Normally, Slammers don't use calliopes, since our AI is good enough to slave all of our vehicle mounted powerguns onto any targets our sensors pick up. But, a battery of calliopes makes sure every regiment on planet can fight without worrying about what's being shot at it."

"But, now we get to the cav." About frelling time I thought. "Formally, it's Captain Sir Montague Rolley's Own Troop of Light Cavalry, but we just call it the cav. Rolley has a separate command and he's a subcontractor to the Colonel for this assignment."

N'Demi grinned at John. "No, Commander, they don't use horses. Did cav still use 'em in your day."

John grinned. "I'm not that old, Sarge, but sometimes I feel that way."

"The cav does scouting, screening of the main force, economy of force missions and anything else needed. Basically, they just covers all of the areas between the main regiments that Colonel Hammer may get interested in. And if it runs into some Peacekeepers, they can fight, too. Captain Rolley has him sixteen or eighteen combat cars, specially adapted for reconnaissance, a platoon of four or five light tanks, and best of all, two 15 centimeter infantry guns that are in range of us and are waiting to drop some on the friggin' fort."

N'Demi lifted her helmet visor up and looked straight into my eyes. "So, Officer Crichton, think the Peacekeeper's can handle us?" She waited just a microt and then added, "Even if we are a useless human army, Captain D'Argo?"

D'Argo jumped like he'd been stung. "How in the frell did you do that? I thought humans didn't have translator microbes." D'Argo glared at John and I moved myself over to emphasize my closeness to John.

N'Demi laughed, but there wasn't much humor in it. "We don't have translator microbes. But we have AIs that are powerful enough to guide a starship in boost space. And we have to do a lot of work at translating languages. There are hundreds of K'hiff languages on this freaking planet alone, so we got a lot of translator programs for the AI. So we record everybody's language and compare your conversations with what Commander and Officer Crichton say to you in English. Before you know it, we have a translation of what you've been saying."

D'Argo was still mad, so I spoke up quickly. "With this group of Peacekeepers, you'll have no problems. Whatever dragged all of us into this Universe blew up any running engines. The Command Carrier and cruiser have no power and they're headed for the general vicinity of the sun, I suppose."

N'Demi nodded. "Intel says that both ships are gonna miss the sun and swing around it and into a very eccentric orbit. When this is over, we should be able to salvage those ships."

I nodded. This group of humans would have no trouble understanding our technology. "But, usually, the ships would stand off the planet fifty or sixty thousand metras, er, kilometers, They'd shoot up your vehicles and supply dumps from space and you'd have no defenses against that. When you'd been softened up, they'd send in Prowlers and Marauders for closer in work. Only when you'd been broken would they send in Commandos."

D'Argo grunted affirmatively.

N'Demi was distracted by something. Then she slapped the side of her helmet. "Perfect timing. We got a reinforced company of K'hiff regulars screening the damned fort and the guns are good to go. Load up, people. We're outta here."

A half an arn later, John and I were looking down on the Top Dog's fort from a hill about a metra away. N'Demi was to one side of us, communicating with the artillery. There were a good two hundred K'hiff infantry in the woods around us. So far, the Peacekeepers, if they knew we were here, hadn't reacted.

The fort grew closer in my visor screen as N'Demi changed the setting for a close up. Then two puffs of dirty smoke appeared on the top of the fort's flat roof.

"Splash!" N'Demi called to the far away guns. "Fire for effect." After a few microts another puff of smoke appeared and then another and another, every few microts. I could feel the explosions through the ground.

"Not exactly "Independence Day" down there." John said. " Are you sure those shells are working right?"

N'Demi nodded. "We're using shaped charges to cut through the roof. It's a good meter of reinforced concrete, but those shells are gonna make it look like a Swiss cheese. Most of the explosive energy is focused down and into the concrete, where we can't see it. When we get enough of the roof blown off, we'll be tossing some high explosive inside. But, believe me, the people on the receiving end are getting the full treatment, Commander."

We sat on the hillside for another two arns. Twice the Peacekeepers tried to fight their way out of the fort, and each time they were easily driven back by the K'hiff infantry. Finally a patrol of K'hiffs was sent in. They quickly established that all that were left of the Peacekeepers were body parts.

Team N'Demi was told by their superiors to stay where they were overnight and meet up with the cavalry unit whose artillery had taken out the fort on the morning.

"Human rations are as appealing as food cubes." D'Argo grumbled, throwing the remains of a plastic package of rations in the fire we had lit. I chewed on my rations and silently agreed with him.

Jool smiled at him, which seemed to brighten the Luxan's mood. "At least were in a position to still eat."

N'Demi gestured towards a mercenary heading for our camp. "From the grin, I'd say Cuchillo did him some good trading for food." She raised her voice. "How'd you do?"

Cuchillo had a pail of something that smelled better than any food cubes in the Universe and a large cloth sack in the other hand. "I ran into a bunch of militia with weapons that should'a been in a museum. I had a couple of the Peacekeeper plasma rifles and they had food. Like the best trades, each side thinks they got the best of the deal." While everyone's attention was on Cuchillo and the food he was distributing, I noticed Chiana slip into camp from the same direction Cuchillo had come from. I was sure Cuchillo was right about trades.

John and I ended up sharing something called a sleeping bag that night.

"It's crowded in here, Aeryn, but I think we'll manage."  
I moved slightly to get a little more room.

"Hey. You don't have to grab all the room, honey."

I shoved John just a little. "You mean that you want to hog the bed just like you always do."

"I do not hog the bed!" He replied indignantly.

I just snorted.

"Well, I don't hog the bed."

"Of course not, John. I just somehow always end up pushed over to the side of the bed."

John slid his arms around me. "I always want to be as close to you as possible, that's all."

One of his hands started to move lightly over my stomach and the other pulled me closer, if that was possible. I put an arm around him and pulled myself on top of him. My mouth found his as he started to pull my top up.

"God, you're fantastic, baby." John muttered. That was followed by a high pitched Nebari giggle from the other side of the jeep and an explosive cough followed by, "Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Crichton." from Sergeant N'Demi.

I kissed John lightly and slid off of him. We fell asleep in each other's arms.

I awoke the next morning to a vaguely familiar aroma.  
"Coffee!' John exulted. "C'mon Aeryn, time to get up," John shot out of the sleeping bag and headed for the other side of the jeep, pulling his boots on. "I love you too, John." I mumbled under my breath.

We sat around drinking coffee, which I admitted I was beginning to like and eating what was left from dinner last night. The military rations remained untouched. N'Demi briefed us on what had happened overnight and what her orders were. "More Peacekeepers are moving out of the forests and headed for the two groups already setting up on the plains. Just to make things interesting, some of the Peacekeepers on the plains are deciding they like fighting K'hiff in the forests better than fighting panzers on the plains. They're headed for to woods. Christ, life is interesting."

That certainly interested me. Different groups of Peacekeepers making diametrically opposite tactical moves? "Sergeant N'Demi, that is very unlike Peacekeepers. Normally the chain of command is sacrosanct. Do you have any idea why they're doing this?"

She shrugged. "They're confused. Your comms aren't that different from ours, so our jamming systems mess up a lot of your comm traffic. When intel gets a lot of transmissions coming from the same place, we figure it's a headquarters and drop a firecracker on 'em. Er, that's we attack the headquarters with artillery. Boom, no more HQ."

I nodded. "Peacekeepers are used to having absolute command of local space and the planetary air. Ground troops aren't trained for operations like this."

"Life's a bitch." Cuchillo said laconically.

"Which brings me to the latest orders from Regiment, people." N'Demi looked around to make sure we were all there and paying attention. Once we attracted Chiana's attention away from Cuchillo, she went on. "They still want your intel, but they want to try to push as many of the PK back to the plains. They also don't like all the little groups of PKs that are wandering around. Afraid we'll get overrun by one of 'em."

"As if." Cuchillo added.

N'Demi glared at him. "Want to talk to Major Steuben about tactics?" Cuchillo laughed and shook his head.

The sergeant stood up and tossed the remainder of her coffee in the fire. "So we meet up with Rolley's cav about ten clicks that-a-way. Once we got the PKs back where we want them, we head for Regiment." N'Demi stood and yelled to her people. " Move people, we're burning daylight."

We all piled into the jeeps and off. The roads were strangely empty after yesterday's congestion. We saw an occasional bit of trash by the road and once a broken down wagon. There was a single pillar of smoke rising in the air off towards the plains. We saw nothing living until we got to Rolley's camp.

"Yo, Slammers?" Came a voice in my helmet.

"Who'dya think, moron." N'Demi muttered under her breath. Then she replied. "That's us. You're expecting us?"

"Affirmative. Captain Rolley wants to talk to you. Up front. Tank Zero Five."

We drove through the company. The vehicles were much larger and more heavily armed than the jeeps, much less the infantry skimmers. There was much more room between the human vehicles than there would have been between any sort of Peacekeeper vehicles and the jeep sped towards the captain. I got only brief glances at the unit. A crew, loading their vehicle while singing. "…come drink and sing and lend your aid…. " the rest was lost as we sped past. We slowed down slightly for a group of humans kneeling to eat something given them by standing human. A scarf around his neck whipped in the breeze as we passed. Two soldiers standing at either end of an unfamiliar machine, arguing.

"There's tank Zero Five." John said tapping my shoulder.

Humans are a conspiracy against translator microbes. I nudged John. "That's a frelling liquid container?"

John and the mercenaries laughed. "Christ, Aeryn…" John began.

"That is a tank, Officer Crichton." N'Demi broke in. "I doubt if your hubby has seen anything like it."

John nodded. "Well, like it, yeah. Sort of."

"Rolley's tanks are nothing like ours. That," she gestured to the tank we were now almost stopped at, "goes about 70 tons, a good hundred tons less than our tanks and has a 10 CM powergun, less than a third the power of ours. But it sure as Hell could ruin your whole day."

We pulled up behind the tank and dismounted the jeep. It wasn't as big as a Marauder, but it was a damned sight bigger than the jeep. It was a good eight motras long and towered over us at least three, maybe four, motras. A squat gun barrel stuck our of it's turret. Standing on the green mottled vehicle was a group of humans. As soon as we arrived, three jumped off and ran towards other vehicles. The human remaining waved to us. "I'm Captain Rolley. Come on up."

Sergeant N'Demi motioned for John and I to follow her. N'Demi introduced us to Rolley. He was a tall, slender human with a smile for everyone and hands for me. His arm slid around my waist and began stroking my bare skin between my vest and pants. "You're an alien? Hard to believe." He said with a smile.

I smiled back. "I am an alien, but I've lived with humans long enough to pick up some of their habits." I stopped smiling. "Such as breaking the arms of people who touch me in places my husband wouldn't approve of. Want to see how well I've learned human ways?"

Rolley laughed and dropped his hand. The smile didn't dim one bit, though. "Sergeant, we're going to rake over the countryside for the next thirty of so clicks. We'll use a wedge formation, tanks at the front and combat cars as the wings. My mortars, artillery, sapper squad, my infantry and your infantry will be at the base of the wedge."

He nodded to me, "The lady, and her husband, of course, should probably ride with my tactical command vehicle. It'll be in the middle of things and should be quite safe for our guests. It's Red 45. See Lieutenant Marbot of the headquarters platoon. He'll be coordinating fires and other support for my attack. He should have some room for you two." He nodded to us, turned and began clambering into his vehicle.

The three of us jumped off. Both John and N'Demi said something simultaneously as they landed. It sounded like, "asshole".


	6. Chapter 6

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Six

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

John and Aeryn have been assigned to a small human mercenary cavalry unit that has sub-contracted it's services to Hammer's Slammers. Ever wonder what fast moving 30th century armored combat would be like? No, me either.

And now on Farscape...

N'Demi headed us back the way we had come. She seemed to know where the vehicle we were looking for was. Suddenly, we swung around and stopped behind another kind of vehicle. It was marked with the human numbers 45 in red.

"That's a combat car, Officer Crichton." The vehicle N'Demi pointed to was about the size of the tank we had left, except that it had no turret. Only a single tri-barrel like the jeeps carried, but with an armored shield on it, was mounted at the front of an open compartment. At the edges of the vehicle were four metal poles that held some sort of metal mesh above the compartment. I could see one soldier standing behind the powergun and another moving inside the vehicle's rear.

N'Demi turned around to talk to John and me. "We use a combat car that's enclosed for a command vehicle. Rolley's cav just takes a regular combat car and takes out the two side mounted tri-barrels and puts in commo and intel workstations. Oh, the mesh on top is a beryllium mesh. The powerguns and calliopes will keep the big shit from dropping on you, the mesh will keep fragments from messin' you up. Just keep your damned head under it. You see that line of square thingys mounted all around the perimeter of the combat car?" John and I both nodded. "Those are directional mines. Used for killing infantry that gets close or knocking down buzz bombs aimed at the car."

The sergeant tapped our helmets lightly. "You're in the database as friendlies and the IFF should keep the damned things from shooting at you, but things go wrong in battles."

"No shit." John muttered.

"Just stay in the combat car and away from those things, okay?" We both nodded to N'Demi and jumped out of the jeep. As we landed on the ground, a face leaned over the side of the combat car. "Climb up. We're moving."

John boosted me up and once on the vehicle, I pulled him up. "I'm Marbot." Said the owner of the face that had called to us. He was different from Rolley. He was short and about as broad as he was tall. I couldn't tell what color his hair was, since he had shaved his head.

Bolted to the inside bulkhead of the combat car were four workstations of some sort, each with a human seated at it, facing outward, leaving a small aisle down the middle of the car. The car lifted on its pillars of air and took off with a roar. Marbot yelled at us and pointed to his head. "I don't wear a helmet so I can concentrate on the four stations. I usually keep one rifleman in back to cover anything the tri-barrel gunner can't see. Try not to let anything back there kill me, okay?" We nodded.

"Incoming spacecraft at 186 local, angels 214, number one four." The voice was that of a computer, I was sure, coming through my helmet. "Warning for Naseby Seven. Repeat. Warning for Naseby Seven."

"Shit!" Marbot yelled. "We're Naseby Seven. We should be okay, but hold on."

I scanned the skies. I had no idea what the numbers meant. Suddenly, I saw a number of specks headed for right for us. I yelled to John. "They'll be here in microts."

From somewhere behind us there came a continuous line of bright green powergun bursts against the sky. "I think that might be a calliope." John shouted in my ear. If the human two centimeter powergun I was now carrying was more powerful than my old Peacekeeper pulse rifle, how would Prowlers or Marauders fare against a calliope? I soon had an answer. They fared poorly. I counted fourteen explosions far above us.  
"Were we attacked by fourteen spacecraft?" I yelled at Marbot. He nodded. "You got them all."

Marbot checked leaned over to check one of his screens. "Yeah, we did. You've got damned good eyesight." He stopped and looked at another screen. "Damn. We missed one. It's damned near right on top of us."

I looked up just in time to see a Prowler roar over us at no more than a few dozen metras. The pilot was obviously having trouble controlling it and smoke poured from the engine. Almost simultaneously, the pilot ejected and the Prowler smashed into the planet.

Marbot yelled back to John and me. "Was that the pilot ejecting, or some kind of weapon?"

I yelled back, "The pilot. From the looks of it, he got out all right." Marbot nodded and bent over one of the workstations and talked to its operator. Then he turned back to me. "I sent the infantry back after him. I told them to hog-tie the bastard and bring him here. See if he'll talk, will you?"

John and I nodded and turned to stare behind us. In a few microns, we saw a jeep headed for us with a black-clad pilot wedged in the back seat. Marbot slowed the command car down and the jeep crew handed the prisoner up like a sack of majouls. John grabbed his torso and I had his feet. Suddenly John let go and our prisoner fell to the deck of the command car.

"What is it?" I yelled. "Did he do something to you?"

John grinned. "No, Aeryn. "He" has boobs."

Before I could scream a warning, the prisoner gathered her legs under her and lashed out at John, slamming him back. He almost went over the back of the vehicle before he managed to steady himself against one of the poles holding the mesh over us. She braced her back against the bulkhead of the car and used her legs to lever herself up. I smiled to myself. The infantry had obviously tied her hands behind her and she had nothing to fight with but her feet.

She tried a kick to my throat which I blocked and then caught her ankle. I stepped forward, pushing her ankle toward the back of her head. I hoped I tore her frelling leg off for having hit John. Once I got in range, I used my other hand to slam her helmeted head repeatedly against a pole and then punched her in the stomach a few times, for good measure. While she was occupied throwing up inside her helmet, I spun her around. Instead of a rope, the infantry had used some sort of plastic manacles to secure her. "How do you get these off?" I yelled to Marbot.

Marbot reached into a box and pulled out another set of the manacles and produced a knife. As soon as he was sure John had the prisoner covered with his rifle, Marbot cut the old manacles away. Worse luck, she was tall enough for her hands to go easily over the crossbar holding the mesh above us. I would have enjoyed having her hang from the overhead frame until her arms pulled out of their sockets. I put the new set of manacles on her and stood back to enjoy my handiwork. She hung there with her arms above her head, her feet just touching the floor. I reached over and pulled her helmet of and threw it over the side. As I threw it, I could hear John's gasp. Frell! Before me was a black haired, blue-gray eyed Prowler pilot with her hair in a typical Peacekeeper braid.

"She could be a cousin, maybe even a sister, Aeryn."

She could be. I wondered if my mother or father had bred any children other than me. I'd never know, of course. "She's a frelling Peacekeeper and no family of mine."

"Frelling traitor!" She spat at me.

I briefly considered seeing how hard her head actually was, then remembered our human hosts had a liking for taking prisoners. I pulled the zipper of her flight suit down and then took a great deal of satisfaction in cutting it off of her. I pulled her boots off and used another of the manacles on her ankles. She wore a standard pair of black cloth trousers and a gray tee shirt under her flight suit. Frell! She had even dressed as I had that day so long ago.

When I was done, I wrapped her hair in my fingers and yanked her head towards John and me. "Listen, bitch, " I used the human word, but I was sure she knew what I meant, "if capture is the worst humiliation you can imagine, maybe you'll get lucky and some Peacekeeper will see you making such a fine target of yourself and fry your frelling brains. But I suspect what will happen is that the humans will kick the dren out of the Peacekeepers just like they destroyed your squadron."

"The humans did not destroy my squadron! I had technical problems and crashed. I'm sure the rest made it back into orbit."

I just laughed. "What's your name?"

She glared at me. "I don't talk to traitors."

I was about to try her head against the pole again when John spoke. "Naturally, she doesn't want anyone to know her name. She knows damned well that her whole squadron was nailed by a bunch of humans. She herself has been made a prisoner, not just by humans, but by a traitor. She doesn't want anyone to know what a monumental cluster frell she's made out of this." John laughed nastily. "We could put a paper bag over her head and call her the Unknown Prowler Pilot."

"I am Officer Aida Borzon. And I may die here, but at least I'll have the pleasure of watching these animals learn what real warriors are capable of. " Then she turned to watch the battle ahead of us.

I looked around too, to see how the battle was going. From my helmet's feed, I could tell that we were over-running small groups of Peacekeepers who had been milling around, trying to decide what to do next.

Overhead I could hear the high pitched whine of artillery and mortars. Ahead of us I could see puffs of dirty smoke that marked their landing. I tried to remember what N'Demi had told me about artillery. Most of what they would use were "firecrackers", large shells containing an explosive. When it exploded, it sent shards of metal out in all directions. The other shells were called "popcorn". Popcorn were tiny explosives about the size of the delicacy Rygel had loved on Earth that were expelled from the carrier shell a good metra or so above the enemy. Hundreds would fall, blanketing an area several hundred metras on a side. They were so small that you almost had to have a direct hit to injure anyone, but there were so many that someone would certainly be directly under one.

Ahead of us, I saw a group of a dozen or more black-clad forms sprawled on the ground. One wounded Commando levered himself up as we approached and got a burst from our tri-barrel gunner for his effort. I noticed our prisoner's eyes followed the slashed and burned bodies of the Peacekeepers as we passed.  
To our left front, a dozen Peacekeepers boiled up out of a trench and ran toward a combat car to our right, firing as they ran. The combat car had a tri-barrel mounted in front, as our command car did, but in place of the workstations the combat car had a tri-barrel mounted on each side of the vehicle. I could see pulse weapon fire striking the armor of the car and then the tri-barrels opened up. The Peacekeepers were torn apart. All that was left after a few microts were some carbonized pieces of flesh and some weapon's parts.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw brighter flashes of green. In a microt Lieutenant Marbot confirmed my guess.

"Officer Crichton? The tanks found something to use their main gun on. Take a look at it on the left. We'll be on it in a couple of seconds."

"It" turned out to be a ten-wheeled cargo transport. Facing human combat vehicles for the first time, someone in the Peacekeepers had desperately tried to improvise. Welded to the sides of the boxy transport were armor panels from a Prowler. It also mounted a dozen or so heavy assault rifles on pintles along its sides. The armor hadn't stopped the 10 cm powergun blasts and it didn't look like the assault rifles had done much damage. I couldn't see anything that looked like it might have been the remains of the crew.

I turned back to Marbot who was looking at me expectantly. "That was a transport vehicle with armor and weapons added. The Peacekeepers don't have anything remotely like your vehicles." Marbot smiled wolfishly and leaned over one of the workstations, giving the operator some instructions.

The cavalry troop continued to grind its way across the open prairie, blasting any opposition into nothingness. I glanced at our prisoner. She was sagging against the manacle holding her up. I lifted her head up with a jerk. "The real warriors don't seem to be teaching the humans very much today. Perhaps you should be considering your future." Where the frell that last sentence came from I'll never know. What did I care what the bitch's future was? As Officer Borzon looked away, I could see tears forming in her eyes.

A computer voice brought me to full alertness. "Incoming spacecraft at 170 local, angels 239, number seven eight. Alert for Naseby Seven." As the computer repeated its message, I tapped John on the shoulder. "That's for us, right? We're Naseby Seven?" John nodded. "And number seven eight means there are seventy eight spacecraft headed this way?"

John nodded again. "We're in deep dren!" John nodded.

I moved back to the other side of the command car. For a change our prisoner was smiling. I scanned the sky ahead of us. There! By the goddess! Where did they find that many Marauders? Then I realized what I was seeing.

"John! Only the lead spacecraft are Marauders! The rest are transports!" John yelled that to Marbot who nodded back while leaning over one of his operators.

Behind us I could see the calliope start to fire. Even with the heavy fire, some of the ships appeared to be certain to get through. When the tri-barrels and tank main guns added their weight to the defense, the ships still weren't being destroyed fast enough.

To our right I saw a badly damaged Marauder lurching through the sky, barely under control. Then I dropped like a rock. I thought it must have been hit, but I was wrong. The Marauder slammed into a tank and both exploded as their fusion bottles overloaded. The blast almost tipped our command car over and tossed John, Marbot and I around. The soldiers at their workstations didn't suffer as badly, being belted in, and our prisoner rode out the blast as well.

"Shit!" John screamed and pointed straight ahead of us. Headed right at us was a transport, leaking cesium fuel and leaning drunkenly to one side. Whether the pilot was planning to ram us too, or was just crashing I couldn't tell, but it made little difference. The driver of our command car went into reverse, the fans beneath us screaming as we shot backwards. The transport was still headed for us and getting closer. Our tri-barrel gunner fired into the cockpit of the transport. That did not good. The transport was still headed right for us. Then it hit the ground and bounced, losing speed. It bounced again and then finally slammed into the earth and slid toward us. As the transport slowed down, we shot away from it, still in reverse. We finally stopped a good two hundred motras from the smoking transport.

"Officer Crichton!" Marbot screamed. "How many troops does that thing carry? Any weapons? Is the damned thing gonna blow?"

I tried to get my wits about me and remember what I knew about the transports. Except for one time, I had been a Prowler pilot, paying no attention to lowly transport pilots. "They normally carry thirty-six Commandos. How many they can squeeze in for s suicide mission is anyone's guess. They have no weapons, usually. They don't try to land until any opposition has been beaten down from space. It could blow. The cesium fuel tanks are in the bottom of the hull and they look like they're leaking badly."

"The crew agrees." John yelled, motioning to the transport. The rear cargo door had opened and a dozen or so of the crew staggered out. One or two saw us and fired a few pulse blasts our way. I could easily see that they wore the green coveralls of techs, not the black armor of Commandos.

"Marie, will you suppress those bastards and then light up their damned ride?" I heard Marbot in my helmet.

The gunner nodded and fired a few bursts into the techs. Then she concentrated her fire on the belly of the transport. It took hardly any time at all to turn the transport and anyone left inside into a mass of flames.

Marbot yelled at the driver to accelerate, as we'd fallen behind the rest of the unit in the dash away from the transport. We continued on. We passed a Prowler wing without a scratch on it, looking as if a group of techs had just put it down and walked off. The rest of the Prowler was nowhere to be seen. We passed at least three burned out transports, surrounded by the remains of their crews. A Peacekeeper pilot strode past us as if we weren't there, repeatedly squeezing the firing stud of his pistol. The chakon oil cartridge must have been empty. Marbot called in the infantry behind us to try to take him prisoner. From the blank look in the pilot's eyes, I had the feeling it wouldn't make much difference to him if they killed him or not.

I noticed that the mercenary's vehicles had stopped and were assuming a defensive formation. Marbot pulled the command car up behind a tank. It was marked with the numbers Zero Five. Frell! Rolley hadn't been the one incinerated by the Marauder. Well, there was still hope.

Marbot hopped up on the deck of the tank and talked briefly with Rolley and then jumped back and began working with the workstation operators. This time he put a helmet on. Finally, he opened the visor of the helmet and walked back to talk to John and I. Before he could say anything, Officer Borzon decided to have her say. "Today the Peacekeepers died like true warriors. They showed no fear and did all in their power to destroy their enemies. To my dying day, I will be proud of them." She twisted around and glared at Marbot and John and I.

"So what was that all about?" Marbot grunted. I explained that Officer Borzon considered that the Peacekeepers had shown the inferior humans a thing of two about how warriors die.

Marbot laughed. "She can understand me, right?" I nodded. Marbot took a small bottle out of a container handed one to John and one to me. I tried it and found it was not alcohol as I had assumed. It was sweet and I liked it, whatever it was. Marbot took one for himself and pointedly ignored Borzon. "The Peacekeepers lost seventy plus spaceships and damned near all of their crews. We got a couple of dozen prisoners. Add to that five to six hundred people already on the planet that we raked over today. We lost five dead and seventeen wounded. We also lost one tank blown to hell and two combat cars, one of which will probably be repaired and one will be cannibalized. All for one attack on a cavalry troop numbering maybe two hundred, counting everyone on the damned planet that wears our coat."

Marbot took a long swig of the drink. "Consider that we're working for a regiment of armor that is ten times the size of this troop and has fifty times the combat power. That regiment is one of ten on this planet. This planet is just a backwoods hell-hole in the middle of no place." Marbot pushed his face into Borzon's face and glared at her. "You think this was a moral victory of some kind? You think people are going to talk about how well you died here? Fine for you then. But my business is providing victories to my employers. And I'll take a victory like this any day of the week. You'll run out of soldiers long before we run out of powergun ammo. Then who'll tell stories about what happened here?"

Borzon looked like she was going to cry. No wonder. She wasn't stupid enough to believe this had been anything but a massacre for the Peacekeepers. Marbot took another bottle out and twisted the cap off. Borzon looked at it and opened her mouth slightly. Marbot put it to her lips and she took a drink. She took a few sips and then turned away.

"Captain Rolley wants us to rearm and refuel in place and pull maintenance as well. We'll send out patrols, but the nearest Peacekeeper force worth worrying about is another fifty or more clicks from here. The troop's trains will be up in a bit and it'll get a little busy."

Marbot gestured to Borzon. "The White Mice have set up a POW camp and they want our prisoners sent over. Is she, or anyone else, going to be a problem? I'd as soon not have to tie too many people down escorting prisoners."

"What the frell are White Mice?" John broke in.

Marbot grinned. "You are from a long way in the past not to know about the White Mice. They're Colonel Alois Hammer's personnel bodyguards and the military police, jailers and executioners for Hammer. A Major Joachim Steuben runs the White Mice and he's quite a piece of work. Most sociopaths are offended by being called sadistic murderers. They like to at least pretend that they're normal. Not Steuben. The more nasty things you say about that boy, the happier he is."

John and I exchanged glances. What the frell had we gotten into? Marbot continued. "I heard a story about where the name, White Mice, comes from once, but I forgot most of it. Some kind of reverse psychology, though. Who's gonna worry about a bunch called the White Mice?"

I moved around Marbot and stood behind Borzon. "Do you want to be one of the honored dead, Borzon? You're a Peacekeeper whose entire unit has been defeated by an inferior race. You are a prisoner of that race and I assure you that you are irreversibly contaminated. The best you could hope for is a quick execution if you ever return to the Peacekeepers, but you know quite well what they'll do to any survivors of this monumental cluster frell, don't you. They'll publicly torture you and then they'll send you into the living death. They'll do just enough damage to your brain so you can still tell how miserable and in pain you are. Then they'll chain you up in a public place in a Command Carrier so everyone can witness your shame. They did that to the survivors of the Kanaos, you know. They still had the chains welded to the walls on my first Command Carrier for all to see back when I was a cadet." I ground the barrel of my new powergun into her back. "You can die, of course. Nothing to it. Or you can live. Forget all the dren you've been taught and try to be something other than an emotionally crippled killer. But you'll have to work to stay alive. And learn. Learn more than you ever thought there was to learn. And even then, there are no guarantees. But if you live, you learn and if you learn, you live."

I knelt quickly behind her and cut away the manacles around her ankles and then those around her wrists. She stood there and didn't move a fraction of a dench. I saw her flexing her muscles and saw her inhale and hold her breath. I put the slightest bit of pressure on the trigger. Then she exhaled and her shoulders slumped. She stood there for a few microts breathing rapidly. "I will live." She whispered.

I stood back from her and backed to where John and Marbot were standing at the back of the command car. "I don't think she'll be a problem, but I've been wrong before."

The supplies came up in another type of the combat car. This version had everything behind the driver's station cut away, leaving only a flat space for the cargo, enclosed by some metal poles and mesh. When these were empty, the prisoners were loaded into the vehicles and left. Most were techs and it appeared that Officer Borzon was the senior surviving Peacekeeper. Well; good luck to her. She'd need it.

Marbot advised us that we were invited to join him for dinner in the Officers Mess, which sounded quite grand. It turned out to be nothing but a stretch of ground next to Rolley's tank where the officers gathered to eat. The food was better than the rations that N'Demi had given us and I was pleased that Rolley ignored me throughout the meal. As we were leaving. Marbot announced that he had prepared a basha for John and I. I looked at John and silently mouthed "basha?" He shrugged.

A basha turned out to be no more than a piece of tarp hung from the side of a combat cat, leaving us a nice enclosed place to sleep. "Your friend suggested you might appreciate this." Marbot remarked as he walked away.

Not surprisingly, I heard a familiar giggle from inside the basha. Chiana poked her head out. "Hey, it's just great in here. You two are going to just love this." She giggled again. "If you can just keep Crichton quiet."

Chiana walked out of the basha followed by an unfamiliar soldier and they both walked off into the night.

John and I stuck out heads inside to look around. We found a groundsheet and two sleeping bags inside as well as a small light. We soon found that the sleeping bags had been zipped together to make one large bag. In microts we had undressed and were inside the bag.

"Do you think you can remain quiet and not wake the whole unit?"

John sighed and relaxed his hold on me. "Not a chance, Aeryn. I guess it's a no go."

I grabbed him and pulled him towards me. "I'll find something to shut your mouth with." And I did.

After a half an arn, John and I lay in each other's arms. John was gently stroking my loose hair and I was getting ready to fall asleep. "Why did you put so much time in with Officer Borzon?"

The question took me completely by surprise. "I don't think that I put in so much time with her."

I could feel John shrug. "I expected you to boot her ass off of the command car and that would be that. But I've noticed that the best way to get a terminally stubborn Peacekeeper to do something is to suggest that it's too hard for her. Like stay alive and learn to live with humans."

"Do you know very many terminally stubborn Peacekeepers?"

"A few." John pulled me a little closer. "Luckily I only fall in love with the ones who are the very soul of reasonability."

"The ones?" I tried to keep from laughing and failed. I lay there thinking, though. Finally I answered John's question. "The Peacekeepers were a force for good once. That changed, but I never saw it until I met you. I am different because I stopped being a Peacekeeper. And, I'm better. I suppose I'm hoping that she can change. That they all can change."

"Do you think they will change? Enough to make any difference?"

"I made a difference." I waited for just a microt. "At least the humans I've fallen in love with think I made a difference."


	7. Chapter 7

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Seven

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

John, Aeryn and their friends are now on their way across the plains of K'hiff, headed for Colonel Hammer's Headquarters. Of course there may be a few problems along the way. And a few when they get there.

And now on Farscape...

The next day, we headed back across the plains with N'Demi and her team and a column of supply vehicles with a couple of combat cars for an escort. By midday, we had reached a human base in the middle of the open prairie. Vehicles of all kinds maneuvered between stacks of supplies, tents, troops and equipment. N'Demi was told that there was an officer at the far side of the camp from her regiment who would tell her where she was supposed to take us. After an arn of fruitlessly driving around, nearly being run over by a self propelled artillery piece, being stuck between two supply columns that were headed in opposite directions and trapped us between stacks of artillery rounds, we finally got to our destination. We finally found a jeep marked with a rearing red Earth animal on a yellow shield, the insignia of Hammers Slammers. N'Demi held a brief and angry conversation with the corporal sitting in the jeep. The only Slammers officer had left the day before and had said nothing about N'Demi or any aliens. And no, the corporal had no idea where the Slammers Headquarters was, as the jeep and its communications having died on him yesterday.

After a quarter of an arn spent fruitlessly "massaging" the AI for further information, N'Demi decided to head for the regimental headquarters. "With any damned luck the Intel Officer will be there and anyone else interested, Commander Crichton. We're on our way. We'll finally get out from under all of these remfs." That was the exact moment that the hovertruck backed into us.

We discovered that the jeep would need major repairs. Cuchillo, the gunner, would only need minor repairs for a broken wrist. N'Demi walked over to the jeep behind us and patted the jeep commander on her shoulder. "Rennie, send a message to HQ that were going to RON at Log Five. Pull up a patch of ground and settle in for the night. As for me, I saw some of the Black Connaught a ways back. Don't bother me for anything less than Major Steuben with blood in his eyes." N'Demi walked away without looking back.

"The Black Connaught are?" John asked.

"Famous for their whiskey." Rennie replied.

N'Demi was half-carried back early the next morning by a half dozen of the Black Connaught who assured us that she was a "loverly woman, a loverly woman, indeed. Din't I remark that she was a loverly woman, Seamus?" N'Demi was poured into her seat in the newly repaired jeep and waved vaguely towards the horizon. "Head 'em up and move 'em out." She mumbled. The driver seemed to take this as a command to go.

By the early afternoon we caught up with a convoy of vehicles at least five metras long, heading the same direction we were. I recognized tanks, combat cars, self- propelled guns, all marked with a dark blue cross. N'Demi gestured to them as we passed. "Strakenz Grenadiers. Damned near as good as we are. And headed for a rendezvous with the Slammers. I'd say someone's in deep shit, or soon will be."

Just before we got to the head of the column, a jeep on the side of the dirt track we were following motioned us to pull over. "Damned chain dogs." N'Demi muttered. A human soldier walked over to us. Worn around his neck was a half moon of metal held on by a chain. Something was written on the half moon in unfamiliar human writing. The soldier leaned close to N'Demi to be heard over the roar of the engines passing us. "There's a little dry watercourse ahead. It's been bridged, but your platoon will have to wait a few minutes for a break in the column. Okay? Ja?"

N'Demi nodded. "You headed for the Slammers?"

The other soldier nodded vigorously. "Us, and three regiments of the morderhunde. They say they'll bring the Skutatoi over, too. And extra artillery. It will be interesting." The soldier turned away to yell something at a passing vehicle. Then, he gestured us to start up. There was a gap in the column for us to swing into.

Once over the bridge, our little unit soon left the heavier vehicles behind. N'Demi swung around to face John and I. "Three regiments of killer dogs, as our friends call the K'hiff and a human infantry regiment. I think we're gonna have to fight in the forest. Bad news for us. A tank's big advantage is speed and long range fire-power. It these damned forests you gotta go slow or you'll ram into one of the damned trees. Can't see anything, even with sensors, due to the trees and what you can't see, you can't shoot. And anyone can get right up on top of you before you see 'em." N'Demi stopped for a microt and looked into the distance. "A real meat grinder with infantry going in one end and meat coming out the other. You and Commander Crichton are well out of this one. Interesting! Shit!"

I nodded. She was right. I wanted no part of this.

Finally, we reached the assembly area of Hammer's Regiment. Our jeep wove expertly through columns of vehicles of all sorts, all seemingly headed in opposite directions. Supplies, only some of which could I recognize, were piled everywhere. And humans. Thousands and thousands of humans. N'Demi leaned back, took off her helmet and shook out her matted hair. "Damn! It is good to be home."

We looked at each other and exchanged smiles. She was home and I knew the feeling. Once home was a command carrier. Now, it was wherever a certain human happened to be. But it was always good to be back.

Our little convoy was stopped by two human soldiers. Beyond them were four large armored vehicles backed up to one another so as to leave a square space, now covered by a tarp, between them I could see what I took to be communications antenna and self important looking people walking hurriedly about. A sure sign of a headquarters.

"Howdy, N'Demi." One soldier drawled. "These our company?" He glanced down at a piece of paper in his hand and then looked us all over.

N'Demi grunted affirmatively. "You ever goin' to get out of the White Mice and be a real soldier again?"

The soldier just laughed. "Nope." The soldier gave me, Chiana and Jool a closer look. Not exactly insulting, but definitely speculative. Then he pointed to me. "This one's an alien?" He said in a slightly unbelieving tone.

"She's my wife, too." John answered for N'Demi.

The soldier nodded and pointed to Jool and Chiana. "Those are aliens." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Well, whaddya think?" N'Demi answered.

The soldier shook his head and smiled. "I seen me one whole bunch of aliens. Damn all like the K'hiff, or furrier. Ain't seen none like these." He grinned at John. "You got any room on your ship, you could sell tickets. Make a fortune."

The soldier wiped the smile off of his face and spoke to N'Demi. "Okay, sarge, time for you to head back to battalion. They're expecting you. Colonel wants to see your passengers. Everybody off, okay?"

We dismounted from the jeeps, gathered our few possessions and with a wave to our new human friends, headed for the headquarters. Waiting for us were another group of the White Mice, among them a slightly built human with the coldest human eyes I had ever seen. He had the shoulder boards on his uniform that I had learned to associate with human officers. Around his waist was an expensively tooled leather gun belt. The pistol it held was a minor work of art, I suppose, all gold inlay and jewels. "This way, please. The Colonel is waiting." He gestured to a group of people I could see sitting around in the space between the armored command vehicles.

John and I passed, but the cold-eyed human stopped Chiana. "You! Hand over your pistol."

Chiana, naturally, flirted with the human officer. She handed him her pistol, and then leaned suggestively against his chest. "Don't you think you'd better search me?"

"No!" The human said angrily and pushed Chiana away, causing her to fall on her eema. She stood up and, with her butt pushed out towards the human, began to slap the dirt from her behind while wiggling it seductively. The officer ignored her, even if his men didn't.

D'Argo was right behind Chiana. The officer turned to him. "Hand over your weapon. That sword thing on your back." The officer did not know how angry he was making D'Argo, having insulted his girlfriend, and now asking a Luxan to surrender his weapon. John and I turned back to head off any trouble.

"Whoa!" John said. "Can't we just all get along?"

"This wellnitz expects me to hand over my qualta blade. He didn't ask for your weapons." D'Argo glared at John and I. "He just wants to disarm the non-humans!"

"Hand over that sword!" The human officer yelled again. I could see his men were starting to swing their weapons to cover D'Argo. John stepped in between D'Argo and the human.

"Look, my friend just wants to know why you're disarming him and Chiana and not us. It's a reasonable question." John's smile was frozen onto his face.

"I was told that a Commander Crichton and an Officer Crichton were coming to give a briefing and that I was to give you", he gestured to John and I, "every assistance. No one said anything about anyone else. So, like anyone else we don't know about, they get disarmed. If your friend doesn't want to be disarmed…" The human drew his pistol, spun it around on his trigger finger and returned it to its holster in one fluid move. He was quite fast. For a human.

D'Argo snorted. "He'd better be faster than that to frighten a Luxan."

D'Argo's words were unintelligible to a human, but the tone and the laugh were clear. "What did he say?" The human officer demanded.

John tried to talk our way out of this, but neither the human officer nor D'Argo were cooperating. D'Argo kept up a stream of insults at the human and the human threatened D'Argo in return. Chiana decided to be no help too, and started translating D'Argo's insults into English. Trust her to know a lot of human insults.

"If the alien thinks I'm not fast enough with a gun to harm him, perhaps he'd like a demonstration?"

D'Argo bellowed that he'd love to see the human try. John and my efforts were no use. It was decided that the human officer would draw and fire over D'Argo's head, while D'Argo was free to try anything against the human. I had to admit the human had self-confidence.  
One of the humans was to count to three and both were to go for their weapons. D'Argo stood about two motras from the human.

"One." The human was relaxed and had a slight smile on his face.

"Two." D'Argo glared. As John would say, so what else is new?

"Three." Instead of reaching for his qualta blade on his back, D'Argo's tongue shot out and caught the human in the face. He dropped and his pistol fell to the ground.

"What is this all about? What happened to Major Steuben?" A voice cut through the murmuring of the White Mice. The soldiers straightened up and faced the officer who had come out to investigate the clamor. He as a tall, strongly built human with hair so short, I thought he might be bald, as some humans became with age. He had a long narrow face, dark eyes and a mouth set in a grim line.

"Sir…"One of the soldiers began.

"Your officer will be just fine in a few minutes, he was just knocked out. We're the ones with a problem here," John interrupted. "First you give us weapons, and then you try to disarm my friend. We're in a war zone here, so naturally he objects."

"I don't object, John." D'Argo said to my surprise.

Chiana then made a little speech to the human on behalf of D'Argo. "Captain D'Argo understands perfectly that security needs are paramount. He is quite prepared to hand over his qualta blade. He asks only that you be careful as it is not only a family heirloom, but an energy weapon as well." With that, D'Argo handed his qualta blade over to the bemused human officer. Jool gave the officer a smile and her pistol. He handed both to the soldier who was already carrying Chiana's pistol. "Make sure their property is returned to them exactly as it is now. Send a medic to see to Major Steuben and have him report to me as soon as he's able."

"Yes, sir, Colonel Hammer."

I dropped back a pace to be even with D'Argo and spoke to him in Sebacean. "Not bad for a simple Luxan warrior. You made him look foolish in front of his men, but to his commander, you're a reasonable being and the major is a trouble maker."

D'Argo grinned. "I've been around Rygel for far too long."

"I hope this doesn't come back to bite us."

After all our trouble in getting here, the briefing was an anti-climax. John and I sat on either side of Colonel Hammer with our three friends behind us. N'Demi had sent reports in on what we had said about the Peacekeepers and the humans now had their own experience fighting them. There were a few high points, though.

A mildly disheveled Major Steuben came to see Colonel Hammer during a particularly droning report on the Prowler. Hammer waved for the human intelligence officer to continue his presentation while Major Steuben knelt by the Colonel.

Hammer spoke just loud enough for John, D'Argo and I to hear. "Joachim, it appears that I was remiss in my orders. Not only are the Crichtons our guests, but their friends as well. I expect that they will all be treated as guests of the regiment have a right to be treated."

Major Steuben nodded vigorously. "You can depend on me, Colonel. I exist to serve you."

Colonel Hammer nodded. "I know you do, Joachim. That's why I fully trust only you."

Steuben stood and walked away. But I had seen the look in his eyes. He did exist to serve Colonel Hammer and for no other reason. And I thought Braca was bad.

We spent the next several arns confirming what the humans already knew. "Correct, the Peacekeepers have nothing like your tanks." "The Peacekeepers depend on Prowlers and Marauders to hit pinpoint targets on planet." "Techs aren't really trained as warriors, but they are capable of fighting." I was getting bored. Then it got interesting again.

Another human in a different uniform stood up. By the Goddess! How many different uniforms did they have?

This one was a Captain Colleoni and he had led a salvage team onto the wrecked command carrier and the cruiser. "Officer Crichton, perhaps you can correct me if I'm wrong. We've talked to a few prisoners using an AI as a translator, but that's still pretty rough. We do have our own observations, too. A command carrier is about one kilometer in length and it displaces about a million tons. Is that about right?"

I briefly converted the human figures into those I was familiar with. "About right." John nodded, too.

"We calculate that about twenty to twenty five percent of total hull volume is taken up with functions not usually found on a human warship. You carry not only the crew, but your race's children on these ships. You have space set aside for training these children as well as your soldiers and technicians. We even found five areas that seem to replicate a planet's surface. Your entire society is in those ships, is that right? "

I nodded."Their ships are the Peacekeeper's homes. They do have bases and garrisons on planets, but they are capable of putting everyone in a ship and going anywhere they choose."

John smiled at Captain Colleoni. "And just for the record, Aeryn's society is right here with me. She is not a Peacekeeper. Not anymore."

Captain Colleoni nodded and looked at a schematic of a command carrier that was projected behind him. "So a human warship the same size as a command carrier, one that had no function but a warship, would be, all other things being equal, more powerful than the command carrier?"

I nodded. Captain Colleoni hadn't said so, but it sounded like humans had warships the size of command carriers.

After that the meeting ended and all of us were assigned temporary quarters. As combat accommodations went, they were better than Peacekeepers could have expected. John and I had a tent stretched over a wooden frame with a wooden floor. A couple of cots and metal lockers completed it. D'Argo and Chiana got the same and Jool got one all to herself. John and I decided to spend as much time as possible avoiding the war going on just outside.

That was not all that easy. The largest group of Peacekeepers had taken refuge in a forest. The previous K'hiff occupants of the forest had been a decidedly low tech group that lacked the modern weaponry the K'hiffs that followed President Azzule had. The local K'hiff compensated by digging tunnels throughout their forest to hide in and fight from. When the Peacekeepers arrived the local K'hiff decided to leave. The humans had decided on a simple but effective tactic to dig the Peacekeepers out. First, select a small section of forest and subject it to nonstop artillery bombardment until the trees were all knocked down. Then send in tanks to reduce the downed trees to ashes. Once that was done, the above ground defenses could be pounded by more artillery and tank fire. When the Peacekeepers were finally driven into the underground tunnels, infantry and engineers would be sent in alongside the tanks to collapse the tunnels, or at least seal their inhabitants inside for good. All of this required the artillery around Colonel Hammer's encampment to fire day and night.

The first interruption we had was from Jool. She brought D'Argo and Chiana with her, of course. At least this time John was dressed.

"I have been trying to get some information about the human part of the Universe, in case we have to stay here, but I haven't had much luck pumping the intelligence officer I've made friends with."

"Try letting him pump you." Chiana purred before anyone could say anything.

Jool glared at Chiana and started to say something.

"Whoa!" John broke in. "We are not staying here. Aeryn and I have a family on Moya if you'll remember?"

Jool gave John a look. "John, I know how you feel, but you have no idea what that was that we came through, except that it's not a wormhole. We don't know if we can get back."

"Hey, I have some ideas about what that thing is!"

Everyone looked at John.

"Okay, I know it's not a wormhole."

D'Argo almost laughed. "John, Aeryn, I don't want to stay here either, but we don't know what will happen if we try to go through that anomaly thing. We might end up a thousand years in the past in a galaxy run by Hynerians, or we might not go anywhere. We need to know something about this new Universe we're in and quite frankly, the humans will talk to you and Aeryn and not to the non-humans."

Jool nodded. "D'Argo's right, John. I've been talking to Major de Gautier in intelligence for days and he just gives me generalities. We can't get the information from the humans we need. You and Aeryn can."

"Bullshit!" That was Chiana. "You can't get anything from human males by wiggling your brain at them, Princess. You were never on Earth, so you lack my knowledge and Earth language abilities."

Personally, I thought Chiana's English language skills pretty much ended with "Can this skirt be made shorter?" but she did have a point of sorts.

Chiana smiled at being the center of attention and reached down the front of her blouse and took out a small handful of paper. "I also have experience in getting information others want kept secret. Like this." She handed John a folded up piece of what looked like part of a newspaper.

John studied it and shrugged. "It's an ad. So?"

Chiana grinned. "It's an ad for C&B Interstellar Lines. Announcing that with the opening of the new refueling depot at Parrancelli, you can travel all the way to Amaroast on C&B, a total of 172 light years."

John stared at her. "So, you planning a trip?"

Chiana grimaced and turned to me. "How do you put up with him, Aeryn? No need to answer that, I know."

I nodded and looked at the ad, working my way through the script I hadn't used in a while. "I think that Chiana is saying that the human sphere of influence must be at least 172 light years across at one point at least."

Chaina giggled and clapped her hands. "Score one for the ladies."

John sighed and reached for one of the papers Chiana was holding. I took another. Jool and D'Argo whose human language skills were respectively, none, and, mostly obscene, watched. In a few minutes we had each read through all of the clippings that Chiana had snurched and then we compared notes. The results were certainly incomplete, but were also both reassuring and disturbing. The human sphere of influence was certainly larger than anything we had any experience with. It was larger than the Scarren's crumbling empire and larger even than the Nebari sphere. But the humans had created an endless succession of minor nations among the stars. A nation with half a dozen star systems under its control was accounted as a superpower. Most nations occupied one solar system and some planets had multiple, competing governments. On the other hand, these governments fought endless wars with each other, which led to a vast surplus of soldiers, whose very existence led to more wars. And, as we had seen, the humans had advanced beyond anyone we knew about in planet based weaponry. As luck would have it, we found almost nothing about what their warships might be like. We did find references to them, so human navies did exist.

"Like Greece, but with no Alexander." John said under his breath.

"Grease?" I asked.

"Sorry, Honey, Greece is a country on Earth. Some three thousand years ago they had a series of big wars. That left a lot of unemployed soldiers around. A lot went off to sell their skills to Greece's neighbors, a lot like the people here do. Eventually, a king named Alexander conquered Greece and gathered up all the soldiers and set off to conquer the world."

"Did he conquer Earth?" D'Argo asked.

"His soldiers eventually rebelled. They wanted to go home. But he conquered a whole helluva lot." John was quiet for a few microts. "I'm with his soldiers. I want to go home." I slid my hand into John's and gave him a smile.

All that did was establish that we wanted to go home. How we'd manage it was another matter.

A week into the battle for the forest, a young human officer came to our tent. We were not in a position to receive company and in no mood for any, either. As bloodcurdling death threats from John didn't send the officer away, we had to get up. John complained that my giggling had kept his threats from being effective.

The officer took us to see Jool's friend, Major de Gautier. De Gautier waved us into the back of an armored command vehicle parked some little way from the main headquarters of Colonel Hammer's regiment. "The Peacekeepers have been broadcasting this for a good hour or so. We have a partial translation courtesy of the AI, but the name caught our attention first thing. Ah, here it comes again." De Gautier made an adjustment to something on the panel in front of him and a voice speaking Sebacean came in clearly over the comm.

We listened to it and then John took my arm and started pulling me out of the vehicle. "Thanks for the free radio show, de Gautier. It's got a good beat, but it's too hard to dance to. We don't need to hear any more. Adios."

He had me almost to the main hatch of the vehicle when I managed to pull away. "John! This is important."

"You're damned right it's important, Aeryn. That's why we are having nothing to do with it." John took my arm again, but this time I braced myself and he couldn't move me without hurting my arm.

"Excuse us, Major. I need to have a little talk with the missus outside."

John let go of my arm, hopped down from the vehicle and walked over to the nearest tree and stopped. I followed him. He stood there looking very worried, angry and defiant. "Aeryn, you are not going."

I took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy. "John, I have to go. One hundred and sixteen Peacekeeper techs want to surrender, but they're frightened. They know what Peacekeepers do to their prisoners. They know what the Scarrens do. They know what most races do to Peacekeepers that they capture. Frell, they know what the Peacekeepers will do to them if they ever get retaken by other Peacekeepers. They want assurances from someone who knows humans that they won't be tortured or enslaved. That's why they asked for me."

"Fine! Go back inside, get on the damned radio and yell "ally, ally oxen free" and tell the damned Peacekeepers to come on out."

"I can't do that. They asked for me to come to them to assure them that they'll be safe. They won't trust a voice on a comm."

John put his arms around me and pulled me close. "And suppose it's a trap? Suppose some Peacekeeper figures, "Well, I'm gonna get my ass shot off, but maybe I can take Aeryn Sun with me? What about that?"

I leaned my head on John's shoulder as I had so many times before. I still felt him relax just a tiny bit as he always did. "I spent most of my life killing whoever the Peacekeepers told me to kill, with absolutely no mercy or remorse. Since I left the Peacekeepers I've killed more beings. Now I feel the weight of every single one of the beings I killed. I have to try to save these people. I have to. They deserve the chance at a real life that I got. I deserve to be something more than just a killer."

I felt John's hand go to my hair and start to stroke it. "You're going to be stubborn about this, right?" I didn't quite trust myself to speak, so I just nodded against his shoulder. "You are a lot more than just a killer, Aeryn Sun. I told you a long time ago that you could be more, and you are." John kissed me lightly on the forehead. "So, when do we go, Mahatma?"

"We? They asked for me. No telling how they'll react to a human."

"They'll be thrilled that a genuine, one hundred percent, dyed in the wool human dropped by to lead them into the promised land. Hallelujah! Trust me on this, Aeryn."

"You're going to be stubborn about this, aren't you, John."

John nodded. I put my arms around him and gave him a nice, long kiss. He gave me one back.


	8. Chapter 8

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Eight

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

With the Peacekeepers being relentlessly ground down by Hammer's Slammers, a group of PK techs offer to surrender if Aeryn will personally assure them that they will be safe. John objects. Of course he objects. Neither John nor Aeryn should go near those techs with less than the Iron Division with them.

But they go anyway.

And now on Farscape...

It took another two days to get ready. First, Colonel Hammer had to approve the plan and then it had to be presented to President Azzule. Strangely enough, prisoners in human wars were returned after the end of hostilities. Peacekeeper prisoners might be impossible to return, even if it was not certain death for them to be sent back. President Azzule was thrilled at the prospect of over a hundred trained technicians accepting service with him. He ordered his regiments to cooperate fully. This then had to be explained to the techs who had to ask a million questions, most of which were unanswerable.

The plan itself was brutally simple. The area of the forest occupied by the tunnel system the techs were holed up in was carefully mapped. Then, Colonel Hammer brought up enough artillery to put a box of exploding artillery shells around that tunnel system. That would keep any Peacekeepers out that might want to keep the techs from surrendering. Then a small task force of tanks and combat cars would take John and I to the entrance to the tunnel system. Once there, we'd hop out and drop down into the tunnel and assure the techs that they'd be safe. Once they agreed to surrender, a small portion of the artillery box would be opened for a convoy of hover-trucks that would come in and take the surrendering techs out.

Alternatively, if we did not come back out, an incapacitating gas would be pumped in and infantry sent into the tunnels to remove the techs to be handed over to the K'hiffs tender mercies. By then it was assumed that John and I would no longer be in a position to care about things like gas.

Early in the morning of the third day, John and I were squeezed into a tank. For a vehicle that size, there was hardly any spare room inside. John sat on the floor of the turret with the tank commander's feet in his face. I sat on his lap and rested my head on his shoulder and stared at the tank commander's boots. Once the hatch was swung closed, the noise of the artillery barrage outside could hardly be heard. I put my lips against John's ear and whispered to him. "I want to apologize for the last time I lied to you." John just turned and gave me a look. "When I came back from being an assassin, I told you that death was nothing. I lied. That is how I felt for the whole time I was a Peacekeeper, but now death means losing you and that would mean losing everything. Which is why I don't intend for either of us to die."

John whispered back. "An occasional lie I can live with. Just don't die on me again." I nodded and we sealed our bargain with a kiss.

Before we knew it we were there.

"We're here. Time to un-ass." The tank commander's voice screamed in our helmets. He squeezed out of his hatch and onto the back of the tank so we could get out. John and I scrambled out after him. We dropped to the forest floor and ran for the biggest tree in sight. That was our landmark. We slammed to a halt against the trunk of the tree. There, on the other side of an exposed root was the entrance to the tunnels.

"Down there! This is Officer Aeryn Sun. I have Commander John Crichton with me." I yelled in Sebacean.

A voice called up. "Drop on down. It's only a little over two metras."

I stepped forward, but John caught my arm. "Me first. I'll let you know if it's okay." I put my ankle in front of John's and gave him a little push. As he sprawled onto the dirt, I jumped into the tunnel.

I landed with a pulse pistol in my face. Holding the pistol was a black uniformed Commando. No, she was wearing a Commando uniform, but she was no Commando. Her face was dirty and she looked exhausted, but under it all, she was too young to be a Commando. She was young, skinny, dirty, and frightened. I just hoped she didn't kill me.

John landed by my side. "Dammit, Honey, that's not funny." I gestured towards the girl and John brought his rifle up to cover her. Slowly, she lowered her pulse pistol.

"Officer Sun?" The voice was tired and very young. I tried to guess how old she was. Fourteen cycles? Fifteen?

"John Crichton and Aeryn Sun, The Dynamic Duo. Are your people ready?" John broke in.

The girl turned around and headed down the tunnel. "You'll have to talk to the Admiral. This way."

"The Admiral?" John asked. "I thought this was all techs. What the hell is going on here?"

The girl turned around. "The techs will surrender if you can convince the Admiral that they won't be enslaved or executed. We warriors won't surrender."

I wondered how long she had been a warrior, and how much longer she'd stay a warrior, but didn't say anything.

We followed the girl down the tunnel. As we went along, the tunnel started getting steeper, then it would flatten out for a bit and then get steeper. We passed dozens of techs huddling in side passages. From the snatches of conversation we heard, they knew why we were there and were happy to be about to leave. I saw only one warrior, a badly wounded Commando whose one remaining eye followed us as we went through the tunnel.

Finally the girl stopped at a doorway covered by a piece of cloth woven by the K'hiff. "Admiral Kurta is inside, Officer Sun," I nodded to the girl and pushed through the cloth with John right behind me. The girl followed right behind.

The space was lit by a battle lamp that revealed two people sitting on some piece of furniture the K'hiff had left. Nearest me was a burly man, whose uniform showed the rank bars of a captain. The woman was sitting slightly behind him. She had white hair tied with a dirty strip of cloth, dark eyes and a narrow, angular face. Her whole body was narrow and angular.

"Sun?" She asked. I nodded. "I'm Admiral Steen Kurta. Not active, of course, it's been twenty cycles since I had a command." She gestured to the man. "Arrick Neem used to be my Fleet Captain. Now we're both on the scrap heap." She rose easily to her feet and looked me over.

"So you're the infamous Aeryn Sun. I expected more." It wasn't said as an insult, just a statement of fact.

"What did you expect me to be like?" I almost laughed at her. What would a Peacekeeper think a successful renegade would be like?

"I don't really know. Someone larger than life. Someone who'd burrow into my headquarters with her teeth and take all the techs out whether I liked it or not. Not someone who looks just like every other frelling Prowler pilot I ever saw."

John did laugh. "Maybe you look at the wrong things? Or for the wrong things."

The Admiral stared at John. "You're Crichton, the human." John nodded, still smiling.

The admiral sighed. "You're not what I expected either."

"You expected me to be Godzilla with an attitude? That I'd come busting in here with a command carrier between my teeth? Shredding Scarrens with one hand and juggling worm holes with the other?"

"Actually, no." The Admiral said with a slight smile. "I expected less. When I first heard about you I couldn't imagine how even the idiots that half-breed had recruited to follow him could have allowed a non-Sebacean to just walk into a Gammack Base and then blow the whole frelling planet up while leaving. I just didn't believe that you could look exactly like a Sebacean. I really thought for a while that Officer Sun was the brains behind you. I couldn't believe how Sebacean you looked until I saw the surveillance tapes from the Shadow Depository."

"Our secret's out, Honey. Aeryn Sun, Superstar."

"I'm not stupid, Crichton." The Admiral growled. "Give me enough proof that you are a frelling dangerous enemy and I'll believe it no matter how much propaganda I've swallowed over the years about the inferior races."

"That said, you asked Aeryn and me to come here to help you get the techs out before they get slaughtered. Shall we get on with it?"

"Cadet Lekka," The Admiral said to the girl who'd brought us in, "bring those techs in."

The girl turned and pulled the door-covering aside and gestured for two female techs to come in. "Tell everyone what happened to you." The cadet commanded.

The two were older than the cadet, but not by much. They looked slightly less dirty and hungry than the cadet and I noticed one had a shirt with some sort of a human emblem on it. Had they met humans? They looked at each other as if each wanted the other to speak. Finally the admiral cleared her throat. That got one of them going.

"Tech Marlata, Admiral."

"I know who you are, girl." The Admiral snapped. "Tell us what you know."

"We were taken prisoner. By humans. Not those others. They had us working."

"You can do a better report than that!" The cadet cut in.  
Both women stiffened and Tech Marlata continued. "We were captured with Lieutenant Maskaroff's unit. Fourteen techs and one wounded Commando were taken. We were moved to the rear in some sort of a vehicle and put to work. They had us techs unloading cases of rations. They took care of our wounds, which were minor. I don't know about the wounded Commando. I had never seen him before and they took him away. They fed us and did not hurt us. They had us working next to the humans and the furry locals."

"The K'hiff." John supplied for her.

She nodded to John and continued. "After two solar days, we were being moved when the convoy we were in got ambushed. The truck we were in was damaged. The human driver escaped. We were recovered and brought here."

The Admiral looked closely at them. "You saw no one being harmed? Nothing was done to you?"

"Marlata frelled one of them." The other woman muttered.

"I did not. You retract that or I'll bring charges."

"Enough!" The Admiral yelled over the din. "Get them out of here, Cadet." Cadet Lekka pushed the two women out of the room.

"I need guarantees that these techs will be well treated. I need more that the word of a renegade Peacekeeper and her.." The Admiral stopped for a microt…" bed-mate." She finished.

"The word you're looking for is husband." John said. "And you have all the guarantees you're going to get. One, you have us. We thought enough of the chance to save the asses of some ungrateful Peacekeepers to risk our necks by coming down here. If you want your second guarantee, just be real quiet and listen."

We all stopped and listened. I could hear nothing out of the ordinary.

"What you hear is the sound of Peacekeepers, hiding in a tunnel made by iron-age barbarians, while getting their asses waxed by humans. Your best guarantee is that no one cares about you. You Peacekeepers have been nothing but cannon-fodder on this planet since you got here. No humans are going to torture you for your secrets because no one thinks you know anything worth the bother. They won't enslave you because they have better ways of getting work done. The K'hiff are smart enough to know that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." John caught the puzzled look and explained. "The K'hiff are smart enough to understand that keeping valuable technically trained people happy will get more work out of them."

Captain Neem laughed. The first sound I'd heard out of the Peacekeeper Captain. "A dangerous man, indeed! He tells the truth to admirals. Can't get much worse than that."

"Oh shut up, Arrick." Her tone of voice took any sting out of the rebuff. "That's why you never made admiral. You couldn't stop telling people the truth, no matter how unpleasant it was."

"And I was a better Captain than most admirals ever were."

"We can get out the family albums later, folks. Now we have to move." John cut in.

"We warriors will stay here." Cadet Lekka said sharply. "The techs are ready to go, all you have to do is give them their orders."

"What is the matter with you people?" John asked.

"I have to ask the same question, Admiral." I turned to Captain, "And I might ask you why you're not giving some hard, unpleasant facts to the Admiral right now."

"I am not interested, Sun." The Admiral's voice cut through John and my complaints. "Frell," she looked down at her foot, "my foot's become numb from being in one place. Your assistance, Cadet Lekka?"

As the Cadet moved to help Admiral Kurta, Captain Neem silently slid behind the girl. He jabbed the back of her neck with a small syringe. There was a sharp intake of breath and Cadet Lekka toppled to the dirt floor.

The Admiral and the Captain stood over her looking down for a microt and then turned their attention to John and I. "Cadet Lekka is at an age when dying for a lost cause is a noble gesture, not a sad waste. I have a message chip to give you for her. I hope it will explain things. Please see that she gets out all right."

"Just tell her yourself. And can we please get the hell out of Dodge?" John broke in.

The two Peacekeepers exchanged glances. "As Cadet Lekka said, we warriors are staying."

That was too much for me. "Are you two farbot? Did you manage to miss not only what John just said, but what you just said?"

Admiral Kurta turned on me with her eyes blazing. "Don't tell me what to do, Sun. I was a Peacekeeper when your grandmother was giving problems to the crèche technicians. I was a Peacekeeper when we had a purpose other than to gather personal power. I was a Captain when people actually cheered Peacekeepers when they arrived on a planet. I was an Admiral when people who weren't committed to the new way of doing things were purged. I was finally thrown on the scrap heap myself. I was an uninvited, honored, but ultimately ignored, guest on a command carrier that was run as one man's little personal kingdom. And now, according to Commander Crichton, I'm to be a nonentity in a new and strange universe. You two are so right. The humans don't want me, and the K'hiff would soon find that I'm a rather elderly warrior with none of the technical skills that they value. I can't see myself sitting in front of a little K'hiff hut and telling boring stories about the old days. I'm sure the K'hiff wouldn't stand for it. Or worse yet, they'd be too polite to shut me up and I'd ramble on, living a useless life for more cycles."

"Damn! You people are absolutely.."

I cut John off. "John, do you recall saying that sometimes I can be just a bit firm in my beliefs/"

John grinned in spite of our situation. "You are as stubborn as a mule, Hon. But a lot prettier."

I made a mental note to ask about mules at a later date. "I was only an Officer. This is an Admiral."

John looked back and forth between me and Admiral Kurta. Finally, he shook his head. "Okay, you win."

Kurta, who had obviously never expected any other outcome nodded briskly. "Right. Commander if you will pick up Cadet Lekka and carry her to the surface?"

Thirty microns later we were crouched inside a hollowed out tree not ten motras from where we'd entered the tunnels. The Admiral and Captain Neem crouched behind us. Behind us the techs waited quietly. Cadet Lekka was still unconscious and in a makeshift stretcher. The wounded Peacekeeper I had seen on my way in hadn't lasted long enough for us to try to move him. Outside the din of the artillery barrage was deafening, but I could faintly hear the high pitched whine of hover tanks headed for us.

As the tanks and combat cars roared past us to take up defensive positions, I yelled to the techs nearest to me. "First dozen of you, get ready. As soon as the hover truck stops, out you go. Your lives may depend on how rapidly you get on the trucks."

Within microts a truck slammed to a stop in front of our tree. John kicked a false panel out of the tree and the first dozen ran for the truck and hurriedly boarded. The truck moved away and another one took its pace. As the last groups of techs got ready, John looked at the two Peacekeepers. "Still time to change your minds. Hell, Aeryn found out living with humans isn't so bad. You might like it." Both just shook their heads.

The last hover truck pulled up and the last group of techs grabbed Lekka's stretcher and ran for it with John and me right behind them. We piled into the back of the truck and the driver took off, Lekka in her stretcher in the middle and the techs along the sides. As the truck convoy headed away from the tunnels, guarded by the tanks and combat cars, I breathed a sigh of relief. That feeling lasted for all of half a microt.

"Oh, shit!" It wasn't until later that I realized I had spoken in English. Just ahead of us a Peacekeeper pushed up through the dirt and started shooting at our truck, Other Peacekeepers were popping up all around us. As I started shooting at them, the explanation flashed through my mind. The Admiral had broadcast in clear and the Peacekeepers had picked it up. They couldn't push their way through the barrage of human artillery around the Admiral's tunnel system, but they could burrow under it from their own tunnels.

John and I each took a side of the hover truck and started shooting. The techs, although armed, cowered at the bottom of the truck bed and fired only an occasional shot at the sky. Our driver jinked madly to keep the Peacekeepers from getting a clear shot at us, but the frellniks were all around us. One Peacekeeper stuck her head out of a tunnel and our driver fishtailed over her. I heard a scream from behind me and whirled to see another Peacekeeper had leaped onto the back of the truck. He steadied himself with one hand and aimed his rifle at John with the other. I threw myself across the bed of the truck, but I knew I was too late. He'd shoot John before I could throw myself between them. I hoped I'd be seeing John soon if there was an afterlife.

But the Peacekeeper suddenly bent over double and I could see Cadet Lekka's boot had buried itself in his crotch. He cursed her and swung his rifle down to shoot her. John shot him off the back of the truck. He tucked and rolled and ended up on his feet. For a tenth of a micron he stood there trying to get a shot off at us. Then a fast moving combat car smashed into his back and ground his body into the soil. As I looked back I could see a group of Commandos standing by the tree we had hidden in, shooting at something on the ground. I tried a long shot, but missed.

I screamed at one of the techs to check Lekka and found John was leaning over me and shouting in my ear. "Don't you ever try that again, Missy!"

I shot at a tech that was firing at our truck and was disgusted that I missed. "We take care of each other, Crichton." Frell! I only called him Crichton when I was angry and I was not angry. Perturbed, perhaps, but not angry.

John hit a pilot squarely in the chest with a snap shot. "You do not throw yourself in front of me to take a pulse blast, Aeryn. That is not going to happen again."

Before I could reply, I heard a muffled scream from the front of the truck and the truck started to turn to the right and slow down. John and I both leaped for the driver's compartment. John, being more familiar with human vehicles, got there first. I had to content myself with a pulling the dead driver to one side. Since we had moved away from the convoy and slowed down, we had attracted the attention of every Peacekeeper in the vicinity. I fired my human powergun with one hand and my pulse pistol with the other, firing both as fast as I could.

"Aeryn, would you please get down?" John screamed as he rammed another Peacekeeper. I could hear his scream as the truck bounced over him.

"What do you expect me to do? Stay home and bake cooties?"

"Cookies!" John yelled back.

"Oh, now you're criticizing my English?"

"No, I am just trying to keep the woman I love alive."

"And I am not going to watch you die again." Frell! How could I have said that? The one thing that made both of us irrational was talking about the death of the other John.

"Yeah, but I killed you."

I bit off a reply as a Commando bounced up onto the front of our truck. She was still alive, but slightly disoriented. A quick shot to her head assured that she'd never recover her equilibrium.

"You did not kill me! It was that horrible clone in your head. Scorpius killed me and I don't ever want to hear you say it was you again! Never!"

As we approached the convoy, a combat car pulled along side of us the chivvy us into position. A tri-barrel burst from the car incinerated another Peacekeeper. As I looked around, he seemed to have been the last one standing.

"Aeryn, you're stuck with a human who has a very human tendency. I'm never going to stop worrying about you and I'll never allow you to be in any danger if there's anything I can do to deflect that danger, even if it's to myself."

Goddess! How human was that statement. "Just don't get killed, John. I couldn't stand it."

"Same back at you, Babe." John said as we moved back into the convoy and slowed down.

"Our only choice seems to be to die together." I said, glaring at John.

John glared back and then his lips started to move up into a grin. I could feel myself smiling, too.

"Right, we'll have to insist that anyone who kills one does us both. Maybe we can advertise a two for one sale or something?" John was laughing.

I actually laughed myself. "Given the fact that we're both still alive, perhaps we should just never give up." I reached over and took John's hand as we drove out of what was left of the forest.

The humans went back to their methodical destruction of the remaining Peacekeepers. They were able to move a little faster since so many Peacekeepers had been killed when they had tried to keep the techs from surrendering. John called it a Banzai charge, which after he explained it to me twice, seemed to fit. But the artillery kept firing around the clock and the tanks kept turning the blasted trees into ashes. And then the engineers and infantry went in to destroy whatever was left. I found myself wondering what the K'hiff tribe that had lived there would think when they saw their home again. I had changed.


	9. Chapter 9

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Nine

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

John and Aeryn have saved a group of surrendering Peacekeeper techs and now can enjoy the fruits of their labors. Of course, they will. Won't they?

And now on Farscape...

After a few days we were transferred from the tactical headquarters of Hammer's Slammers to the main headquarters of the Hurate's World Protective Force, which was located in a K'hiff town of ten thousand or so, and that now hosted a few thousand humans as well. The humans were staff types that bought food from the locals, rented land for military facilities, and took care of the thousand and one logistical tasks involved in keeping thousands of combat soldiers supplied. The humans seemed to have lost their interest in us, so John and I spent long mornings in bed getting to know each other better. At night we took in what passed for entertainment. There were a couple of restaurants, a type of facility I had little experience with and which John insisted we try. He also found a place that played something called dance music. I found I could easily adopt my combat moves to dancing and also found I enjoyed dancing. Of course I enjoyed being with John, no matter what.

Our friends had kept a lower profile, but we could hardly have kept Chiana away from anything that might be fun. D'Argo, somewhat unwillingly, went out when Chiana did. He found that the humans of this era, with a thousand years more history, had seen so many aliens that one more new one excited no comment. Jool found herself unable to contain her curiosity about the civilization that had sprung from John's planet. Luckily, many human males were happy to answer questions for a beautiful alien scientist. We also managed to find out a lot more about the human end of the galaxy.

One afternoon while out shopping, I heard someone call my name. It took a microt to realize the voice had spoken in Sebacean.

Her hair was worn loose now and she was wearing a human uniform of some sort. I nodded to her.

"Officer Sun? I'm Officer Aida Borzon, the pilot you captured?" She was at the position of attention, and she was also plainly uncomfortable.

"I'm not Officer Sun any more. I haven't been a Peacekeeper for a very long time."

She nodded and ran her tongue over her lips. "I'm not a Peacekeeper now either, I suppose. That's what I'd like to talk to you about," she stopped for just a microt and then added "Aeryn?"

"I suppose it's just starting to hit home that you're not a Peacekeeper anymore?" I waited a microt, too, and added, "Aida."

She just looked confused, as if she could hardly stand to consider that possibility. I wondered if I had been so impossibly dense about the obvious. A microt's thought decided me that I had.

"If I could talk to you for a few microts? It's just that the humans are so frelling impossible to understand!"

I laughed, but quickly stopped when I saw her face. "I'm not laughing at you, Aida. I'm just remembering how many frelling times I've said the same thing. And still do."

A lanky red-headed human male stuck his head out from behind a tent and called to Borzon. "Aida? Lunch is in half an hour. We need to eat then so we can take the "Busted Flush" over to maintenance. Otherwise the freaking ordnance weenies will never fix the damned right side mount."

Borzon smiled at the male. I noticed that he wore a uniform that seemed to be identical to hers. Then she tried her English out. "Okay, Ed-dee. Talk friend." She gestured to me and was obviously frustrated with her inability to communicate anything more than the simplest concepts.

"I'm Aeryn Crichton." I said to the human. "I'm a Sebacean married to a human, John Crichton. I'm afraid Aida is having trouble adjusting to things. Would you mind if I talk to her for a while? I should probably translate for the two of you later."

The human happily agreed and I suggested that I take Borzon to a local food stall so she wouldn't miss lunch. The food stall was a collection of mismatched tables and chairs covered by a canvas canopy and run by a K'hiff who had managed to learn to cook some things that John thought slightly resembled human delicacies. I ordered for the two of us and then stared at Borzon. She blushed and stared at the table.

"I imagine you're having trouble understanding one particular human?" I began. "The one we just talked to?"

She kept her eyes down, but nodded.

"If I'm going to be any help, Borzon, you're going to have to say something sooner or later."

She managed to get her head up and look at me. "I will never understand them."

I smiled. "Me, too. There's nothing else like humans in the Universe."

Once she started talking, though, Borzon seemingly couldn't stop. "They took us here after we were captured. We were put to work with humans and K'hiffs loading their trucks. We only handled bulk food, or other things we couldn't sabotage or use as a weapon. Our guards were mainly K'hiff. I expected we'd be beaten or something, but they never did. Most of the Peacekeeper prisoners were techs and used to taking orders, I guess."

We were momentarily interrupted by the arrival of the food. Borzon continued to talk around mouthfuls of food.

"When we were done for the day, they gave us some kind of food in a little plastic bag and a blanket and groundsheet. I sat down behind a truck away from the other prisoners and for the first time I had a chance to think about what had happened to me. There I was, a prisoner of the humans, with no future as a Peacekeeper and only the life of a slave ahead of me. If I had any life ahead of me, that is." She stopped and resumed staring down, so that I couldn't see her eyes. I waited for her to decide to talk. Finally, she did. "I was crying."

I reached over and took her hand. She stiffened for a microt. "I've cried a few times since I stopped being a Peacekeeper. It's not the worst thing."

She went on. "Ed-dee found me. He made some stupid joke about crying when he was given military food, too."

I nodded. Yes, he was a human all right.

"Ed-dee took my arm and led me away. I assumed he was going to punish me. He didn't. He took me to where his unit was eating. The.." She stopped and carefully formed the human word. "mess. He got me a plate of food and something to drink. The humans seemed to know that I was an alien, but didn't seem to mind my presence."

An alien brought before a group of Peacekeepers who were eating would have been, to quote John, as popular as a fart in church.

Suddenly she burst out. "They are so bizarre. And so weak."

"They're not weak, they're strong." I got the same odd look I always got when I was trying to explain humans to the rest of the uncomprehending Universe. I should be used to it by now. I plowed on. "In this Universe, or Reality, or whatever it is we're in, the humans are the Lords of Creation. No one, repeat, no one, has faster than light drive except a very few races who have bought the technology from the humans. That means that all the inhabitable planets with no native inhabitants, and that's a lot around here we've found, become human colonies. There are hundreds of billions of humans scattered across tens of thousands of worlds. In our Universe we have the Scarrens and the Nebari and the Luxans and the Hynerians and all the rest to contend with. Humans have only other humans to worry about. All the non-human races in this end of the galaxy couldn't cause the humans a problem."

That had seemed to have gotten through to her. "The humans are so used to being the only thing to worry about that they don't see you as a threat, just as an odd form of human."

That did get her attention. "I am not some form of human! The very idea is absurd!"

I had to smile. I just barely managed to stifle a laugh. "There's some Interion scientists who'll say you're wrong. One of them is here, if you'd like to talk to her. I'm not sure you'd understand her, but you can try."

She had stopped eating and was staring at me. I went on. "It's not like the Peacekeepers gave them much of a fight, as you saw."

She bridled. "The fight wasn't fair. Our command carrier and cruiser were damaged by that frelling planet we hit, or that hit us. If it hadn't been for that,,,"

"You would still have been beaten eventually." I finished for her. "You've seen how much better the human's weapons are for fighting on planets. I don't know as much about their warships, but I suspect that they'll give us a horrible shock if we ever run into any. And who ever worried about a fight being fair?"

I went on. "And the humans have been fighting each other for thousands of years. They have no centralized empire like the Scarrens or Hynerians. Every frelling world is its own master and they all fight each other constantly. That's what kept you alive, I think."

"How?"

I stopped for a microt to gather my thoughts. I hadn't expected to have to talk about this to anyone except John. "As a human I once met said, "Humans have no permanent enemies and no permanent friends, just permanent interests. I'm not saying it's impossible to surrender to a human army and get massacred for your troubles. But the humans find that the smart thing to do is to treat prisoners well and send them back home when the war is over, so that when the next war starts, you can be allies with your former enemies with fewer problems."

While she was sitting there digesting that, I asked the question." So, what happened with Ed-dee?"

As I was betting myself she would, she turned bright red. But she talked. "When I was done eating, he took me back to where the prisoners were sleeping. I assumed he'd frell me. What else would a male do with a compatible female captive?"

This time she had to stifle the laugh. "You know I was wrong, I imagine?"

"Some human males would have frelled you and thought no more of it. But humans are not Peacekeepers."

"Ed-dee walked me back to my blankets and said good night. I wondered if I was especially ugly by human standards. The next day, I went back to work loading supplies. We were right next to his unit and he was there, pulling maintenance on his combat car. It's called the "Busted Flush?"

Frell! The things humans could do to language. I tried to give her a sensible reply. "It's a bad hand in a human card game, a form or entertainment or gambling. Why a human would give a name to his vehicle, or why he'd use that name is beyond me. I've only been trying to understand humans for a bit over six cycles." I was sure I'd be at that for the rest of my life, but I didn't tell that. I didn't want to discourage her.

Aida went on. "I know a little about fusion engines, so I went over to help. None of the guards minded and Ed-dee's crew didn't say anything. I spent most of the day helping them and then we went to the mess to eat again. And Ed-dee walked me back to where I was sleeping again."

She stopped. I was pretty sure how this story ended, but I asked anyway. "And?"

She shrugged. "I grabbed him, pulled him down and we frelled our brains out."

With a Peacekeeper, that would have been the end of the story. I just looked at her and smiled.

She sighed and continued. "What happened next really shocked me.'

"He talked to you." I just couldn't resist.

"How did you know?"

"I'm married to a human, remember?"

"He told me about himself. He was born on a human farming commune and was conscripted as an infantryman when he was sixteen cycles old, if you can believe that."

A Peacekeeper conscript would have been half that age or younger, but I thought that sixteen would be considered young for a human.

"He fought in a civil war on his home planet and his side lost. His family was dead or scattered and his home destroyed. The only life he knew was a soldier. A few of his comrades became bandits, but he was recruited by a mercenary company that had fought for the winning side. He's been a mercenary soldier ever since."

"Does that bother you?" Mercenaries were used by the Peacekeepers, but never trusted and never used unless absolutely necessary. And then they were gotten rid of a quickly as possible. Often in the same way my mother had once gotten rid of an unnecessary Colarta.

She shook her head. "No, I have no home and the only life I know is a soldier. I can't see myself working as a tech for the K'hiff, even assuming they'd hire me. I have no good options, and he's asked me to go with him when he leaves the planet. He has a few followers and is trying to recruit more. He hopes to have a small unit of his own."

I saw this coming from a metra away, too. She hadn't. "But there's something else that concerns you."

This time she turned red, stared at the floor and didn't say a word. I finally had to continue the conversation. "You're afraid that the human will form an emotional attachment to you and that you'll become attached to him. That's known as love, by the way. And then you'll be just like that horrible, traitorous trelk, Aeryn Sun, with a human husband and children. Right?"

Her head shot up and she stared at me. "No! No, not that. I mean I do worry about being…"She looked around, as if she thought she'd find an inoffensive word for it somewhere.

"You worry about being in love." I finished for her. "Well, don't worry about it. I can assure you it's not that bad. I've survived being in love with John Crichton and I wouldn't have my life any other way, if you must know. To tell you the truth, I don't think a lack of emotional attachments does much for the Peacekeepers and I know you'll never be happy among humans if you try to keep your emotions all walled off. You'd be better off telling Ed-dee good-bye and living the rest of your life here with the K'hiff. You simply can't live successfully among humans and not let your emotions loose."

We sat there and stared at each other for a long time. Finally she spoke. "I don't think I've ever been so frelling terrified in my life. How did you stand it?"

I laughed again. "Easy. There was no other option. Oh, I could have died, but I was too stubborn to let someone kill me just to put me out of my misery. And after a while I got to see that being with John was better, more interesting, more exciting than anything I'd known in the Peacekeepers." I thought for a microt. "You may end up loving Ed-dee and find he doesn't love you. Or neither one of you will love the other. Or….all sorts of things may happen. Love is like combat, except that you die much more slowly when things get frelled."

We stared at each other again for another long time. Finally she just shrugged. "I'll go with Ed-dee."

We left the food stall and walked over to where Ed-dee's combat car was being repaired. I made a show of telling Ed-dee, or Eddie, as I found he was, all about the physical differences between humans and Sebaceans. About the living death and paraphoral nerves and stasis pregnancies. When Aida went off on an errand, I managed to tell Eddie a great deal about her lack of any emotional experience. I told him that, based on my experience, she'd probably be a giant pain in the eema at times because of her inbred fear of an emotional attachment. I also told him how happy I was with John and that I thought Aida could be brought out of her Peacekeeper shell.

When she came back, she stood right by Eddie and looked me straight in the eye, looking every bit like a pilot about to go on a suicide mission. Oh well, with any luck her journey would be easier than mine. No lunatics were likely to implant a mental clone in Eddie's brain, or hijack his DNA to keep an empire going, or any of the things that had kept John and me apart for so long.

For good measure, I had Jool write a report on all she knew about Sebacean physiology and diseases. I had John deliver it to Eddie with instructions to explain to Eddie just what he was getting into, the good and the bad, from the human male perspective. I thought that I would never see them again.

The wars didn't last long. The Peacekeepers were soon reduced to a few bands of stragglers that the K'hiff militia could handle. The two ships had originally had been home to more than seventy-five thousand crew.

How many of those had survived whatever it was that had shot us all into this Universe, I had no idea. But they had been remorselessly ground down to less than a thousand prisoners, plus a handful still on the loose. It gave all of us, even John, something to think about when it came to humans. 


	10. Chapter 10

Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Ten

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

 **Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.**

Previously on Farscape...

John, Aeryn, D'Argo, Chiana and Jool have been shot into another reality where they learn much about others and themselves. Now all they have to do is get back home. Have they tried clicking their heels together and saying, "There's no place like home"?

And now on Farscape...

The human's war ended before it began as it turned out. A naval task force from the Greater Albegnesian Free Trade Area arrived and announced that a compromise solution had been arrived at and that most of the mercenaries would be leaving. In a few days, merchant ships began arriving to take the mercenaries and their equipment away. Chiana was able to get us a close up look at the human warships.

"Wanna go up and look at the human ships?" Chiana asked, breezing into our quarters in the K'hiff town. Luckily we were still dressed, but John quickly slid has hand out from under my vest. I would have a little chat with Chiana about privacy.

"Snurch a ship, Pip?" John grinned at her and she grinned back.

"Talked a pilot into taking us up if we can get there in a hurry." Chiana turned to face the house she shared with D'Argo and raised her voice. "A good looking human pilot. He's probably rich, too."

I heard a strange noise coming from the direction of their house. Chiana grinned and raised her voice again. "Unfortunately, I'm just a stupid Nebari trelk who can't do anything but frell a man to get by in this Universe."

There was that sound again. Definitely the sound of a Luxan going into a hyper-rage. I grabbed John's hand and pulled him towards the door. "Time to go."

Chiana turned to shout at D'Argo one more time, but I got a hand over her mouth just in time. "Chiana, we do not need to pick up after a hyper-raging Luxan, so you can just stop."

She looked like she was going to start an argument, but John weighed in on my side. "Damned straight, Pip. We have enough problems without D'Argo going all kamikaze on us."

Chiana walked a little way on, "He thinks I'm dumb. He thinks all I can do is frell and snurch. He just pisses me off."

I kept my mouth closed since I had a similar opinion of Chiana's talents. Not that they weren't useful for a group of escaping prisoners, and I had no problems with how she got through life. D'Argo did.

"Well, at least our ride's here." Chiana announced proudly as a K'hiff jeep screamed to a halt in front of her and a K'hiff leapt out and bowed low to her. "Lady Chiana. We are ready to go. I hope this is proper transportation for you?"

Chiana nodded slightly. "It's fine, Goneck. Please thank the clan elders for me."

"Our pleasure and duty, Lady Chiana." He replied.

When we got in, John pulled me close to him. "We'd better be nice to Lady Chiana, she'll probably end up owning the Universe."

Chiana giggled. "I do know a few little technological tricks that the locals found useful."

"You're not dealing with the local wiseguys, are you, Pip?" John asked her, but Chiana just told us that it was her business.

The human pilot wasn't handsome by any standards I knew of, and I was sure he wasn't rich. Pilot Bandaranaike was an overweight human who could barely fit into his pilot's seat and who seemed fixated on food. Even his descriptions of the ships we passed once we achieved orbit were about food.

"That's the Jalapa over there." He said, pointing to a teardrop shaped vessel a hundred or so metras away. "Horrible food. I couldn't possibly serve on her."

John nodded. "Inedible food and they won't give you seconds, I bet." He said sympathetically. While I ran that through my mind, trying to make sense out of it, the pilot just nodded. "Too, right."

We did manage to get some useful information out of him about the ships we were passing. Human transports were almost invariably unarmed. Now that could be useful information.

"That's the Tannenberg. " the pilot said. "The warship you're interested in."

I checked out the rather simple minded readouts that were all that the shuttle could provide. Other than some information on the size of the ship, I could tell nothing.

"Can you get in closer?" I asked.

"Yeah. We're going to dock on it."

"They let you dock on a warship?"

Bandaranaike nodded. "Can't get their mail otherwise."

"Mail?" Humans were just too confusing. "Wouldn't it make more sense to broadcast any information that was needed up and store it in a database?"

"Most stuff is." Bandaranaike jerked his thumb towards a collection of cases behind us. "But sometimes original documents have to go. Legal stuff and things like treaties."

We landed on a landing stage on Tannenberg. For once the humans showed good sense and had sentries posted to keep unauthorized visitors like us out. But the pilot was able to give me a little information. The ship was a class called a Fregaten and the six escorts were Monitors. The Tannenberg was the equivalent of a Peacekeeper escort cruiser, but was slightly smaller. On the other hand, it was about twenty percent faster and was armed with long range missiles as its main weapon instead of frag cannons. John unnecessarily pointed out that in a fight the human warship could stay out of range and blast its opponent with missiles equipped with detonation lasers while the Peacekeeper ship couldn't get close enough to reply.

Back on the planet we found D'Argo had left his quarters with some humans. Worse yet, he seemed to have headed for Lo'La with his new friends. We arrived at Lo'La in the middle of a huge argument.

"No, David. Fifth dimensional trigonometry is not necessary to reset Lo'La's navigation database."

"I'm not sayin' it is, Cap'n D'Argo, but if ye'd consider the possibility?" Said a lanky, sandy-haired human standing in Lo'La's passenger compartment. A dozen humans around him nodded and mumbled and muttered among themselves.

"Lo'La is an ancient Luxan warship, David. Fifth dimensional trigonometry is necessary only for..." D'Argo stopped and waved us over. "John Crichton is a human scientist. He can explain it all to you."

With that, the dozen humans started bombarding John with questions and suggestions about getting Lo'La into space again. John lasted about three microns and then eased his way out of the crowd of humans who were by now all talking and gesticulating at once.

"Damn! And I thought wormholes were tough. I have no idea what those guys are talking about. "One more reason to get out of Dodge." I was all for that and slipped my arm around John's waist and put my head on his shoulder.

"Does anyone know why D'Argo thinks we can just waltz out of here?" John asked.

Chiana grinned at us both. "Because we can."

"Just like that?" I asked, a little suspiciously.

"Sure." Chiana replied. "It's all politics, once the humans found out that the Peacekeepers were a bunch of dream buffs in combat." John started to say something, but I silenced him with a look. Chiana went on. "First you have to understand the way politics works around here. I wish Ryg were here. He'd be better at this than me. But let's start with Earth and its colonies and allies. Then there are the Outer Powers. There are seven of them. The first is…"

"Pip, could we just cut to the chase?" John asked.

Chiana looked questioningly at John, so I helped out. "John means can you just tell us the important things now?"

"I knew that." Chiana smoothly lied.

"Yeah, honey. Pip knew what I meant." I refrained from pantac jabbing my dear husband.

Chiana took a few microts to put her thoughts in order. Or to decide how much of the truth she was going to tell. "Well, Pancahate and the Greater Albegnesian Free Trade Area are big powers locally, but this is the frontier of human explored space. They're both small tomatoes compared to the really bag boys. But, Pancahate pissed off one of the stronger factions of the Panseatic League, who provided the money for the mercenary units that deployed to this planet. The Albegnesians could have afforded maybe one of the regiments sent here, but never the ten or so that ended up here. So now Pancahate is an object lesson not to piss off the bag boys, and the mercenaries are headed back to the really important wars on really important planets and everybody is forgetting all about this insignificant border planet."

"And it's odd aliens and Anomaly?" John grinned.

"Not exactly." Chiana countered. "The human warship that was here sent some powered down drones past our friendly local ship-eating planet. Their best guess, emphasize guess, is that the planet is mostly a machine run by a quantum singularity. Naturally, they were scared drenless about being next to one."

"Anyone who isn't frightened of a tame black hole doesn't understand the situation." I remarked dryly. I remembered our experience with one.

"I hope humans are smart enough to stay scared of the damned thing." John said quietly. The three of us sat thinking about that remark.

D'Argo's human friends had Lo' La up and ready to try to fly back to our own Universe and time in another ten days. As D'Argo said, it took the humans three arns to talk about doing something and an arn to do it. I noticed the humans all paid close attention to Lo'La's stealth mode. Very close attention.

But, soon enough, we found ourselves heading towards the Anomaly with Lo'La's engines off. I left my station and moved onto John's lap.

"I love Aeryn Sun beyond hope." He whispered in my ear.

"And I love John Crichton beyond hope." I leaned into him and gave him a kiss that would last us if this was to be our last kiss. I just hoped the frelling Anomaly would cooperate. In the middle of the kiss, I saw a searing white light, even though my eyes were closed, and passed out.

"You are one hell of a kisser, lady." I heard from a distance. I just smiled and we started checking ourselves out. We seemed to be fine. Then I knew we were fine.

"Captain D'Argo, is that you? Where have you been?" A familiar voice said over the comm.

"It's us, Pilot. We're all here and all fine." D'Argo responded quietly.

"There's some one here who wants to talk to John and Aeryn." Pilot began.

John and I exchanged grins, wondering how the children had managed without us.

"Crichton? Sun? I am never going to babysit children again. Rygel hasn't been seen since you left and Scorpius has locked himself into his cell. And what's more..." We didn't hear the rest of Sikozu's tirade due to all the laughter.

Late in Moya's night, John found me sitting on our bed, cleaning my human powergun. The armor and helmet were neatly hung on a rack I'd had the DRDs make for me.

"The kids are asleep, Honey." I nodded to John.

"Glad to be home?" I nodded again.

"Gonna tell me what I did wrong?"

I put the rifle down and turned to face John. "You have done nothing wrong."

I got a grin from him. "So, how come you haven't said three words to me all day?"

I reached over and grabbed his belt and pulled him down onto the bed. Before could say anything, I gave him a long, slow kiss. When the kiss ended we stared into each other's eyes. "I love how you try to change the subject, Honey."

I suppressed a laugh and lay my head on his chest. "Humans are just so frelling confusing. Just when you think you have them figured out, they surprise you."

"The ones you just met are from a thousand years or so from now. They're not like humans we saw when I took you back to Earth."

I snuggled up against John. "I think they are. Confronted with tens of thousands of Peacekeepers that would not surrender, they simply annihilated them. Humans are more warlike, more violent, more ruthless, more capable of organizing and controlling violence than I had thought possible."

John thought about that for a while. "I told you about humans. The world wars. The Holocaust. The killing fields. Vietnam, the Middle East, the Balkans, Africa, South America. The whole nine yards."

"I know, John. But I somehow always thought of humans in terms of you. When you first came here, you wouldn't even carry a weapon. You always wanted to try to talk your way out of things. As if you could talk sense to a Sheyang or a Luxan! Over the years you've changed. You haven't totally lost that desire to solve problems peacefully, but you can be very efficiently brutal if you think you have to."

"I'll agree I have changed, but why does that confuse you? You know the Uncharted Territories. If I hadn't changed we'd probably all be long dead by now."

"I thought we'd changed you." I stopped and waited for a microt and then continued. "I thought I had corrupted you. I thought I had changed a peaceful human into a killer. I felt guilty."

John gave me a hug and silently stroked my hair. "And now you know better. Human beings can be made into killers very easily. No lovely lady ex-Peacekeepers needed. We humans can do it all by ourselves."

I nodded.

"And you're confused."

I nodded again.

"I think what you need is someone to spend the rest of his life teaching you about humans."

I smiled. "No offense, human, but what could I possibly need from you?

"How to make love, not war?"

EPILOGUE

Edmund Burke O'Donnell stood by the floor to ceiling window and looked out on the city below him. A one hundred story office tower was nothing to brag about on most worlds, but this was K'hiff, and it was not most worlds.

O'Donnell let his gaze stray to the area across the river to the open prairie beyond the city. Not many days ago his troops with all of their fearsome weapons; tanks, artillery, assault guns, calliopes, missiles and powerguns; all of their supplies; all of their flags and banners, all of their bands, songs, poems, and their bawdy stories; yes, and their women, and men and even children, had all been camped there. Now only a few roads slashed through the prairie, and scraps of blowing trash marked their camp.

K'hiff had changed in the twenty years since he'd last been here. Thursday's Landing had been a cluster of wooden native huts and handful of prefabricated off-world buildings sited at a convenient inlet in the Ocean of the Gods. Now it boasted, on a much smaller scale, the same amenities that existed throughout the galaxy. Whether that was for good or ill, O'Donnell hadn't decided.

President Azzule had prospered in the last twenty years. An agreement with the best mercenary regiment among the stars had provided him with more than the taxes paid for each soldier enlisted in Hammer's Light Infantry and more than the funds remitted by soldiers serving off world to their clans back on K'hiff. President Azzule had acquired an off-world protector that few would wish to antagonize. When Colonel Alois Hammer became President Alois Hammer, no one wished to dispute with the old throat biter.

The Light Infantry had provided a steady stream of demobilized soldiers coming home to apply their hard won skill as soldiers, and other trades, to better their world. A few humans had joined the K'hiff as well. Not all who had returned had wished to put their skills at President Azzule's disposal, but enough had done so to make Azzule the power on this planet. Those parts of the planet not directly controlled by Azzule were ruled by K'hiff who knew that they kept their positions and heads by the grace of Azzule's veteran divisions.

Azzule had played off the traders who came to his world against each other. In the end, K'hiff became an Associate Member of the Greater Albegnesian Free Trade Area. If this was little better than planetary sized sweat-shop, it was vastly better than being a Trusted Ally or Loyal Friend of the Albegnesians.

If Azzule's luck held, K'hiff would one day be an independent world in fact as well as in theory.

Not only Azzule had grown richer and more powerful, O'Donnell thought. He himself had come to K'hiff as a mercenary soldier and had left as the commander of his own mercenary company, if a force of less than one hundred could be dignified with such a name. His first job had been a learning experience, as he always said.

His second had been a disaster that had ended in defeat and betrayal and almost left them all dead. Dumb luck, a force never to be discounted, had led him and his surviving troops to a crashed transport loaded with tanks fresh from the factories of Earth.

A tank company, especially one equipped with the best tanks in the Universe, was a power to be reckoned with on the Frontier. Few planets on the Frontier could afford more than a poorly equipped part time militia. When they needed soldiers, and they usually did, they hired mercenaries. The mercenaries were usually only moderately better armed than local forces, but they had the advantage of being professionals, with all the advantages of better training and leadership that that implied. But still, most Frontier mercenaries were light infantry units, short on artillery and anti-armor assets. Hiring O'Donnell's Tanks practically assured victory.

As he had grown stronger and richer, O'Donnell had moved inwards from the Frontier to fight for wealthier planets. The Fezzan Civil War and the sack of Al Qua'rho had seen his company expand to an all arms battalion.

Unknown to O'Donnell, and to the rest of the Universe, what would come to be called the Consolidation Wars had already begun. Colonel O'Donnell led his battalion into those wars. The peace that had been finally established only a year before had seen him rise to the command of Marshall O'Donnell's Corps, one of the most powerful mercenary units in the Universe.

If O'Donnell had prospered, so had others. When he had begun his career, a nation that encompassed a dozen or so worlds was consider a hyper power. But the logic of politics and war was for ever larger nations. Planets that held separate independent nations warred until one was supreme. That planetary government then faced neighboring stellar nations composed of many planets. As always, the larger and richer dominated and absorbed the smaller and poorer.

Now, a handful of men and women ruled over a small number of huge, powerful, but war weary interstellar nations. They badly needed peace. What they didn't need was the huge oversupply of soldiers that had grown ever larger over the years. Mercenaries with no homes to return to now that peace had broken out. Mercenaries with no skills other than war to sell to a prospective employer. Mercenaries who had no desire for any other way of life. Mercenaries like Edmund Burke O'Donnell.

As powerful a unit as O'Donnell's Corps was, it paled in comparison to the armies that nations encompassing hundreds of planets could field. So, when the great powers had decided that private armies had to either disband willingly or be disbanded by force, O'Donnell realized he had few options. Leading his unit into a suicidal battle was no option, but neither was sending the men and women who had followed him off to beg on street corners around the galaxy. For that matter, who would hire a former mercenary leader? There was, as a man he had met years ago said, always another option.

"Sir, the transport is ready. All the troops are in the transports in orbit and the warships of the escort are ready." Came a voice from the doorway of his suite.

O'Donnell smiled as he turned to his chief of staff. Everyone talked of O'Donnell's daring and brilliant armored operations. Few realized the debt he owed to his chief of staff, who handled training, logistics and all of the myriad tasks that allowed O'Donnell to focus on defeating the enemy before him without worrying about everything that was happening behind him.

He walked over and gently squeezed his chief of staff's bottom.

"You should not do that, sir. Someone will see." Her voice was stern, but there was the usual mischief in her gray-blue eyes.

"You always manage to see to it that no one does see, Aida." O'Donnell teased. "I'm beginning to think you like it."

Aida Borzon O'Donnell gave her husband a quick kiss. "For a brilliant field commander, you miss some of the most obvious things. I've loved it. And I've loved it for years." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "As I have loved you."

O'Donnell stroked his wife's long, black hair. "You are as beautiful as the day I first saw you."

"And if you want me to stay alive, let alone beautiful, we need to leave here before our enemies arrive."

O'Donnell gave Aida another quick kiss. Then he returned to being all business. "The scout that came in from Hessaline said their fleet was still in orbit, with no signs of leaving. They're in no hurry. They want us to disappear through that Anomaly and become someone else's problem."

Aida took Eddie's arm and led him to the door. "According to the latest intel reports from the other side, we should be a problem to what's left over there."

"I wonder what they are doing over there?" Marshall O'Donnell mused.

Lieutenant General Aida Borzon O'Donnell made no reply. But as they approached the Marshall's personal staff drawn up outside his suite, she did pinch his bottom.

THE END 


End file.
